Guardian features Ed’s complaints as to the ‘wilful misrepresentation’ of Conservative media policy

March 10th, 2010 - 
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‘The shadow culture minister, Ed Vaizey, has denied that Conservative media policy is dictated by Rupert Murdoch and executives at his News Corporation media empire, dismissing the suggestion as “completely laughable”.

Vaizey told delegates at a Westminster Media Forum event in London that Tory policy on the BBC, in particular, has been “wilfully misrepresented”.

He singled out a column in the Guardian last week by Jonathan Freedland [HERE], which argued that the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, had decided to axe services in an attempt to prevent the Tories from making more swingeing cuts if they form the next government. Freedland also said Thompson was right to fear the Conservatives would do this because of “two words: Rupert Murdoch”.

Vaizey responded today: “If a Conservative has any kind of critique of the BBC then somehow this a ‘Sky agenda’. I noticed that in Monday’s Media Guardian James Purnell, a former BBC employee, said BBC2 should only broadcast in the evenings. Nobody has written that to understand where James Purnell is coming from you just have to understand two words: Rupert Murdoch.”

He added: “There is a legitimate debate to be had about the [size] of the BBC.” The culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw, had conceded as much, Vaizey argued.

Conservative opposition to the BBC Trust’s decision to close educational service BBC Jam demonstrated that the party did not have the corporation in its sights, he said.

“You shouldn’t lose sight of the fact the BBC has massive public support,” Vaizey said. “The idea that somehow there is any agenda to do down the BBC is completely laughable.”

Tory policy on the BBC was straightforward, he added. A Conservative government would replace the BBC Trust with an independent regulator and force it to be “more transparent about its finances”.

He said news organisations need to know how much the corporation spends on its news website in order to make judgments on how best to run their own online businesses.

Vaizey reiterated that Tory media policy is dictated by a “de-regulatory approach” but insisted he “liked Ofcom”.

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, last year set out plans to reduce Ofcom’s size and strip it of its policy-making powers.

“We felt there was a leadership vacuum from DCMS [the department of culture, media and sport] so Ofcom was driving policy. With a new and energetic Conservative government you would get leadership on media policy and Ofcom would return to its regulatory role,” Vaizey said.

He also said the Conservatives have no plans to privatise Channel 4 and defended the party’s proposals to fund rollout of high-speed broadband to rural areas with licence-fee money currently earmarked to meet the cost of digital switchover as “a perfectly sensible and intellectually coherent proposal”.

Vaizey added that the principle of using licence-fee money to fund other projects was now well-established.’

Original article HERE.

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News Summary: 8th March 2010

March 8th, 2010 - 
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BBC

The BBC is standing by a report that 95% of the aid raised to fight famine in northern Ethiopia in 1985 was diverted by rebels and spent on weapons, despite denials by Bob Geldof and leading charities (whose complaints can be see in our Weekend News Summary HERE).

BBC World Service’s Africa editor, Martin Plaut’s documentary is expected to find itself the subject of a formal complaint next week when Geldof and several charities send a letter to Ofcom and the BBC Trust. The BBC has declined to comment directly, instead referring to a blog entry written by the BBC World Service’s news and current affairs editor. Andrew Whitehead said the programme had presented ‘compelling evidence that some of the famine relief donations were diverted by a powerful rebel group to buy weapons’, adding that the BBC stood by Plaut’s reporting. He also noted that the programme had not suggested that any relief agencies had been complicit in the diversion of funds:

‘It explicitly stated that “whatever the levels of deception, much aid did reach the starving”… But there is a clear public interest in determining whether some money given as famine relief ended up buying guns and bullets. And that’s what the evidence suggests.’ More in The Guardian HERE.

Erik Huggers, the BBC digital chief, has promised its closure of 200 websites is not simply an exercise in cutting dead wood and will help commercial rivals. In an interview with MediaGuardian – which you can read in full HERE – he said the BBC expansionist tendencies that had angered commercial rivals were a natural consequence of the internet being a medium with no boundaries:

‘Our mistake was allowing our web presence to sprawl, a natural consequence of not being constrained by spectrum… We need to be more focused, and do it much better… we need to improve the quality level, and reprioritise on what we do best.’ More in The Guardian HERE.

Tech

A BBC World Service poll, which collated the answers from more than 27,000 people across 26 countries, has found that 87 per cent of internet users felt that web access should be a basic human right. More than 70 per cent of non-users felt they should have access to the net. Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union has said:

‘The right to communicate cannot be ignored… The internet is the most powerful potential source of enlightenment ever created. [Government’s must] ‘regard the internet as basic infrastructure – just like roads, waste and water’. More in The Telegraph HERE.

The Chinese government has pledged to punish the hackers who attacked Google if there is evidence to prove it, but said it has yet to receive any complaint; Google has never filed a report to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology over the cyber attacks or sought negotiations, Vice Minister Miao Wei has been quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua:

‘If Google has had evidence that the attacks came from China, the Chinese government will welcome them to provide the information and will severely punish the offenders according to the law’. More in The Independent HERE.

Meanwhile today’s Times reports that urgent warnings have been circulated throughout Nato and the European Union for secret intelligence material to be protected from a recent surge in cyberwar attacks originating in China. The attacks have also hit government and military institutions in the United States, where analysts said that the West had no effective response and that EU systems were especially vulnerable because most cyber security efforts were left to member states. James Lewis, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies has said British and American cyber defences are among the most sophisticated in the world, but:

‘… the EU is less competent… The porousness of the European institutions makes them a good target for penetration. They are of interest to the Chinese on issues from arms sales and nuclear non-proliferation to Tibet and energy.’ More in The Times HERE.

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News Summary: 4th March 2010

March 4th, 2010 - 
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Broadcasting

In the name of equality, the Guardian has left BBC 6 Music for the day, in order to ask ‘Where’s the Save Asian Network campaign?’ And then to respond that the majority of the Asian Network audience comes from the Midlands (around 70%) listens on the AM frequency, not on digital radio; you’re unlikely to find them in media-friendly places such as Twitter – ‘The Asian Network’s inability to generate its own noise seems to stem from the fact that it doesn’t appeal to middle-class male tweeters with a love of Suede B-sides.’ More in The Guardian  HERE, with the idea that breaking up the BBC Asian Network will better serve diverse communities dismissed as absurd HERE.

The Times reports the fact that 3,000 complaints have been made to the BBC regarding 6 Music, and a senior BBC executive’s report that Mark Thompson:

‘… told us he is not concerned about the outcry, because it sends a message to politicians that even if you want to close a small, niche station there’s such a large outcry; imagine what would happen if you tried to close BBC One or Two.’ More in The Times HERE, whilst The Independent focuses on new controversy around the BBC giving free sporting event tickets to celebrities HERE.

ITV chairman, Archie Norman has said ITV gains nothing from the proposed BBC cutbacks:

‘I don’t see any benefit… The savings the BBC will make on cutting back on peripheral activities will be re-invested in programming. I can’t see how that will be of any benefit to ITV.’

Speaking of ITV’s own strategic review, which will be run by chief executive Adam Crozier for his arrival on 26 April with support from consultants LEK, he said what was needed was a ‘cold-eyed, realistic’ look at ITV’s position in the marketplace and that ‘today is very much day zero’. Norman, who has in the past said that a move to pay-TV services was not on the cards, seems to be viewing the idea more favourably of late, although maintaining that ITV currently has ‘no suitable product for a pay platform’. More in The Guardian HERE and more on ITV’s profits announcements in The Independent HERE.

City of Culture

Derry was last week one of four cities shortlisted for the title of UK City of Culture, 2013, good news which at the time seemed straight-forward enough; until Sinn Féin demanded that ‘UK’ be stripped from the title if the city wins. Maeve McLaughlin, the party’s leader on Derry city council, has said:

‘I have yet to be convinced this bid, as it currently stands, reflects the views of Irish nationalists and republicans… While we are a city of culture there has to be a recognition that we’re not part of the UK. We are not opposing the bid, but… There is a huge onus on the team that’s been put together to lead this bid to put in writing how they will address the issue of the tens of thousands of nationalists and republicans in this city and region who do not recognise themselves as part of the UK.’

Speaking yesterday at a reception to launch Derry’s bid in the House of Lords, the SDLP MP Mark Durkan said Sinn Féin protests over the title were putting the city’s application in peril:

‘This bid is an opportunity for Derry to promote itself as a city and to promote the wider region. It is about our civic ambition. It is about our cultural ambition. It is nothing to do with political aspiration – in which the people of this city have very clear views and differences about wanting to be part of a united Ireland or United Kingdom… Are we going to say that any other funding or opportunity that is set up on a UK basis we count ourselves out of? We should not be disabling ourselves from making the most of any opportunity to which we are as entitled as anyone else… And we can do that without compromising any of our political beliefs, any of our interests and identities that we hold very dearly at a political level.” More in The Guardian HERE.

Tech

Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom, has said that several media companies had raised concerns about the issue of net neutrality in the last few months and that Ofcom is scrutinising traffic management techniques, to publish its initial findings in the spring. Whilst arguing that traffic management policies must be clearly explained and transparent, Richards has indicated that the highly interventionist approach seen in the United States might not be appropriate for the UK and Europe, and that it was:

‘… even harder to justify blanket net neutrality rules when we consider the risks they could pose to potential collaborative and desirable investment in networks… In the US, limited competition, both at the network and the ISP level, means that the potential for consumer detriment through traffic management is greater… In Europe, as recent research for the FCC indicates, the mixed model — investment in infrastructure complemented by unbundling of the local loop — has delivered a more competitive market structure from the exchange back into the network.’ More in The Telegraph HERE.

Publishing

Mills and Boon’s novels were launched in India exactly two years ago and have doubled their sales in the past year. The publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon, is far from the only beneficiary of a boom in book sales that is sweeping India; Dan Brown’s sequel to The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, has already sold 100,000 in hardback alone; Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker winner The White Tiger has sold more than 200,000 copies since its publication in 2008.

Driving the demand is the country’s continuing economic boom – 6.7% growth in 2009 despite the global crisis – and the tastes of the new Indian middle class. Manish Singh, Mills & Boon’s country manager for India has said:

‘It is a forward looking generation… The low hanging fruit for us is the single working woman who has money in her hands, the liberty to read, no responsibilities yet, no husband, children and so on.’

In the next decade, publishers forecast that India will become the biggest English language book-buying market in the world. New distribution networks and an increasing presence of chains of major bookstores are also fuelling the expansion. More in The Guardian HERE.

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News Summary: 3rd March 2010

March 3rd, 2010 - 
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Broadcasting

Opposition to the closure of BBC 6 Music continues in The Guardian HERE, HERE and here HERE, with more general analysis HERE, HERE and HERE; in The Independent HERE and HERE, with unions’ continuing vows to resist cuts HERE. The Times ponders the likelihood of a licence fee cut or freeze HERE and HERE, with further analysis HERE; in The Telegraph HERE and FT HERE.

Our congratulations to ITV, who have reported a pre-tax profit of £25m for 2009 (in contrast with its posting a loss of £2.7bn in 2008 HERE). ITV had a strong close to the year, outperforming the total TV ad market, which fell 11%. It says it expects TV ad revenues to be up 18% year on year in March and up 15% to 20% in April. TV ad revenues are expected to increase 7% overall in the first quarter. Chairman, Archie Norman, announced that Adam Crozier will start on 26th April, adding that under his leadership:

‘ITV will set out on the journey to become a very different business over the next five years… ITV’s challenge is to reduce its dependence on a free-to-air model threatened by digital media and besieged by legacy regulation.’ More in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; Times HERE; Telegraph HERE and FT HERE.

Art

Infighting and sabotage at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, which has just received an emergency Arts Council Sustain fund bailout of £1.2m, Mark Sladen, its director of exhibitions, has announced he would consider a new role in the organisation only if its director, Ekow Eshun, resigned. He said ‘I would not be able to carry out the duties of the position unless Ekow resigned’ such that, having been told that Ekow has no intention of doing so, ‘I will be serving out my remaining notice, and leaving in late April.’

A vote of no confidence in Eshun has also been taken by staff members. But at a later union meeting, it was decided the vote should not be counted or its results disseminated. A member of staff said:

‘The results of the vote were suppressed, and whatever the official line on this, this is manipulation. Ekow Eshun made it clear that to reveal the results of the vote would be an act of sabotage, that the ICA would suffer from such information being out there.’ More in The Guardian HERE.

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BBC Publishes Strategic Review

March 2nd, 2010 - 
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The BBC has today published its much-leaked strategy review, confirming proposals to shut down BBC 6 Music and Asian Network, and also announcing that half of the websites on BBC online will close by 2013. Among closures will be teen services Switch and Blast, with Thompson admitting Channel 4 should lead the way with these audiences. The strategic review has now been submitted to the BBC Trust for commencement of a three month consultation period. BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons said today:

‘We welcome the general direction of this report, although we will want to test it and consider how it is delivered. We are clear it heads towards a more disciplined and sharply focused BBC… The end result should be a BBC that is genuinely distinctive, genuinely open and transparent and genuinely public service.’

Jeremy has welcomed the review as follows:

‘I am pleased that the BBC is taking a long, hard look at exactly what it should be doing, but the truth of the matter is that we need to see actions not words. Will the BBC be less expansionist? Will it think carefully about its impact on the independent sector? Above all, will it spend licence fee payers’ money on quality public service content that they want to see? Only real change will address these concerns so I hope that’s what we get.’

The review commits a higher proportion of the licence fee into quality programming in order to make ‘fewer things better’. The BBC has listed five core editorial principles – putting quality first, doing fewer things better, guaranteeing access, making the licence fee work harder and setting new boundaries.

Television

  • Capping TV sports rights spending at 9p in every licence fee pound;
  • Reduction of entertainment and comedy on BBC Four;
  • Extending CBBC finishing time until 9pm;
  • Investing £50m a year from this total into BBC Two, children’s programming and journalism.

Websites

  • Half of the BBC websites will close, including Strictly Dance Fever and Street Doctor;
  • Spending on BBC websites will be cut by 25% by 2012;
  • Monthly “click-throughs” to external sites will be doubled;
  • Fewer bespoke programme websites;
  • Defining publicly which areas of activity BBC Online will not undertake.

Radio

  • Closure of 6 Music;
  • Closure of Asian Network;
  • Radio 2 must become more distinctive with at least 50% of speech during the daytime;
  • Investment in local radio breakfast, mid-morning and drive-time shows – but shared content at other times;
  • 1Xtra and Radio 7 to be aligned more closely with their parent stations (Radio 1 and Radio 4). Radio 7 to be rebranded as Radio 4 Extra.

Worldwide

  • The commercial arm will move away from publishing magazines in the UK.
  • Will derive at least two-thirds of its revenue from outside the UK by 2015.
  • Spending on imported programmes and films will be cut by 20%

Thompson expects the plans to see an extra £600m diverted into programme-making, but broadcasting workers’ union Bectu, has said that the proposed changes could result in the loss of up to 600 jobs. General secretary, Gerry Morrissey, said:

‘These cuts are totally unnecessary and are purely politically motivated. It is obvious that the BBC is being bounced by its competitors and by the political climate ahead of the upcoming general election. It is not acceptable for the BBC to be offering up services and jobs as some kind of sacrifice ahead of the general election.’

Thompson has denied that the proposals have anything to do with the forthcoming election:

‘The proposed changes… are not a piece of politics. It is also not a blueprint of a small BBC or a BBC that is in retreat from digital… It is exactly because the media is changing so fast that we must articulate our public service mission and our values more clearly and consistently than ever before… But we also have to recognise the profound challenges facing much of commercial media. And that, while some attacks made on the BBC are destructive and baseless, others represent legitimate concern about the boundaries of what we do, and about our future public service and commercial ambitions. We need to listen more closely than we have in the past.’

You can read the full BBC Strategy Review in PDF HERE.

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News Summary: 2nd March 2010

March 2nd, 2010 - 
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BBC review

The latest on the BBC review, as of 10.04am on the BBC News website HERE is confirmation from Mark Thompson that BBC 6 Music and Asian Network will face closure.

Speaking to BBC staff Mr Thompson also announced that there will be 25% less spent on BBC online by 2013. Among the closures will be teen services Switch and Blast, with Mr Thompson admitting Channel 4 should lead the way with these audiences. He has also pledged that in the future 90p of every licence fee £1 will be spent on programming. The morning newspapers’ coverage of the story can be found in The Guardian  HERE, HERE, HERE (where Greg Dyke accuses Thompson of being overpaid and out of touch), and Thompson’s own article acknowledging that the BBC must stop trying to do everything  HERE. The Times’ coverage is HERE; Telegraph’s HERE, HERE and HERE.

Tech

The 80 or 90% market share dominance of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer looks to be nearing the end as users throughout Europe were yesterday shown a ‘ballot screen’ prompting people to choose a browser to use. The move is part of a deal with European Union regulators; last month Brussels dropped anti-trust charges against Microsoft in return for Microsoft agreeing to provide a software update with a pop-up menu of browsers. Dave Heiner, vice president of Microsoft said ‘users who get the choice screen will be free to choose any browser or stick with the browser they have.’

In an effort to take on Internet Explorer, Google launched a major advertising campaign in Britain to promote Chrome. Today Google will release several improvements in its browser including additional privacy controls and a foreign language translator for web pages. Apple Firefox is the other biggest rival. More in The Times HERE and background on the ’10 year web browser war’ in The Guardian HERE and HERE; Independent HERE; Telegraph HERE; and FT HERE.

Theatre

This month sees the long-awaited launch of National Theatre Wales. In Wales, English speakers outnumber Welsh speakers three to one. The idea of an English-language national theatre has been debated for almost 100 years, but it took Dai Smith, who has chaired the Arts Council of Wales since 2006, to cut through the competing reports on how it should be structured – ‘I decided that this pussyfooting around – should we have a national theatre or not? – was ridiculous… I firmly believe in this’. Like Scotland’s national theatre, the company has no permanent home. Its home is all of Wales. More in The Guardian HERE.

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News Summary: 1st March 2010

March 1st, 2010 - 
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Libraries

Libraries are among the services “most vulnerable” to widespread cuts across local councils, with a BBC survey estimating 25,000 public sector jobs could be lost around the country (more HERE). More than 70% of the 49 councils that responded to the survey predicted spending cuts of between 5% and 20%. The BBC reports that:

‘… services such as libraries… face cuts as councils battle the “perfect storm” of recession – falling revenues and higher demand’

Local Government Association deputy chairman Richard Kemp has said:

‘We know that if the government ring-fences schools, health, defence and the police, other services will need to take a big hit. The LGA view is that everything else will face a cut of 16.5% in real terms. Others believe it could be 18.5%.’

The Guardian reports HERE that under a 10-point government plan to help councils cut spending – in response to the BBC survey – suggests that “arts and leisure services will be most vulnerable to cuts while homelessness, children’s social services and planning are likely to be more protected”.

Meanwhile Tony Travers, director of the Greater London group at the London School of Economics, says:

‘Nothing like this has happened for a generation… To minimise the impacts on the public… would require massive efficiencies in all service, higher charges for many and sharing back-office staff with other public bodies.’ More in The Telegraph HERE.

Heritage

The Times reports fears that historic treasures worth millions will be lost to the country after ‘the Government quietly halved its grant to the “fund of last resort” for heritage.’ Treasury pressure has forced the DCMS to reduce the £10 million previously allocated to the National Heritage Memorial Fund for next year to £5 million, meaning that the fund’s acquisition budget for next year is now in effect down to £1.7 million because £3.3 million of its funds are already committed to assisting the £50 million purchase of Titian’s Diana and Actaeon from the Duke of Sutherland. More HERE.

Radio

In a strongly worded letter to Mark Thompson, the Director-General, representatives of the music industry have said they were ’surprised and alarmed’ by last week’s reports that the BBC is to close 6Music. Geoff Taylor and Tony Wandsworth; chief executive and chairman of the British Phonographic Industry have said:

‘6 Music has established itself as a vital platform providing exposure to a wide range of emerging British music talent… There is no other radio station that is remotely comparable in scale or depth for showcasing new music... It is therefore vital to the artistic and cultural diversity of this country that the role of 6 Music as a taste-maker for the airwaves is preserved.’ More in the Times HERE; and in our Weekend News Summary HERE.

Whilst The Guardian thinks the 6 Music announcement has reminded people why they pay the licence fee, HERE; The Telegraph thinks the licence fee could be scrapped altogether under a Labour government, in response to Ben Bradshaw’s view that there is ‘good reason’ to have a debate as to whether the £3.6 billion annual licence fee is the ‘best funding mechanism’ for the BBC HERE. Further coverage of the BBC’s strategic review, or ‘election manifesto’, can be found in The Guardian HERE.

Tech

CeriseClub, a French internet company has said that illegal file sharing is a ‘national sport’. Southwest France is said to hide one of the highest rates of software piracy in the developed world. Poitou-Charentes, for instance, may be famed for its goat cheese, but it has been hailed by La Charente Libre, the local daily newspaper, as “champion of counterfeit software”.

Studies suggest that 42 per cent of software programmes are copied illegally in France, compared with 26 per cent in Britain and 27 per cent in Germany. In the southwest, the piracy rate was 49 per cent. The cost to business in France is estimated at £1.8 billion — by far the highest in the European Union, driven by an attitude of “Microsoft makes billions. It can afford to lose a few euros here and there”. More in The Times HERE, which also covers today the need to save music from “the twin ravages of illegal downloading and a lack of strategic direction” HERE; and the disproportionate effect of sharing on newcomers’ earnings HERE.

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Weekend News Summary 27th-28th February 2010

March 1st, 2010 - 
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Education

An influential group of leading academics and cultural figures has issued a stark warning that they fear for the future of the arts and humanities in British universities. A letter to the Observer (see HERE) signed by the directors of major arts institutions and a number of university vice-chancellors, claims that funding cuts and a decision to focus on the sciences have left subjects such as philosophy, literature, history, languages and art facing “worrying times”. Without urgent action the country’s intellectual heritage is in danger of being diminished, they conclude, and, with reference to Labour’s decision to run tertiary education from the Business department:

“There is more to citizenship than business and skills… People’s complexity comes from their language, identities, histories, faiths and cultures.” More in The Observer HERE and HERE.

Broadcasting

BBC chiefs effectively wrote off £150m of licence-payers’ money spent on an online education service, BBC Jam, after it was axed, and officials decided efforts to recoup the cash by selling off the material “wasn’t worth the candle” reports The Independent on Sunday HERE.

It has also emerged that leaked proposals by Mark Thompson to axe the digital radio station 6Music have set the BBC’s director-general on a collision course with the BBC Trust. Two weeks ago, the trust published a report into 6Music which concluded the music station was “well liked by its listeners” and its audience had “grown faster than any other BBC digital radio-only service”. It emerged last week that Thompson’s proposals, to be published next month, recommend closing the station down. Other proposals include shutting the Asian Network, slashing the website’s staff by 25 per cent, selling off magazines such as Radio Times and Top Gear and capping sports rights at 8 per cent of budget, or £300m. The news that 6Music is in danger has met with vocal opposition, despite an audience of fewer than 700,000, according to the latest Rajar figures. More in The Observer HERE, HERE and HERE; Independent on Sunday HERE and HERE; FT HERE.

This Wednesday’s full-year results presentation from ITV will be the platform for Archie Norman (Adam Crozier’s start date is yet to be confirmed) to present his plan for the broadcaster’s future – including a roadmap away from the Michael Grade era. The results will be far from woeful; analysts predict pre-tax profits doubling from £34.7m to around £67m-£88m. Numis Securities has forecast a pre-tax profit of around £75m based on the belief that advertising recovered dramatically in the last few months of 2009. The Sunday Times HERE; Telegraph HERE.

Funding

A host of internationally flavoured arts events in London in the coming months are being supported by companies that intend to use cultural links to support their business interests in emerging markets. HSBC, which promotes itself as the bank that best appreciates the world’s diversity, is emphasising that message by sponsoring this summer’s Brazil festival on the South Bank, about which we’ve blogged HERE. Marah Winn-Moon, HSBC’s head of cultural sponsorship, said:

“It is a great opportunity to bring clients in with a cultural hook, and then to start talking to them about doing business in those countries too”.

Overseas companies are also exploiting London’s vibrant arts scene to promote their business in an international context. Nigeria’s Guaranty Trust became the first African corporation to support art in Britain when it sponsored Tate Britain’s current exhibition of paintings by Chris Ofili, a painter of Nigerian heritage. The bank also sponsors the next installation at Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth, the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare’s “Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle”, a reproduction of HMS Victory bedecked with sails decorated with African patterns. The work will be unveiled on May 24. Segun Agbaje, the bank’s deputy chief executive officer, said that arts sponsorship was an opportunity:

“… to give people another perspective on Africa, to talk about its heritage instead of droughts all the time”. More in The FT HERE.

Theatre

Sir David Hare, an associate director of the National Theatre, has said theatre lags behind other creative art forms, such as the novel, when it came to women and equality of expression. Theatres should realise that women’s writing for the theatre had reached a “tipping point”, he says:

“I don’t think the repertory of most theatres at the moment is reflecting what seems to be happening in terms of the most interesting new theatre…We would hope to see management of theatres reflecting where we think the creativity in playwriting is coming from… There’s no doubt that the structure of the theatre is plainly male… The rough and tumble of the theatre is like politics to a degree – it’s a macho business.” More in The Telegraph HERE.

Art

Some of the world’s most important paintings may be lost to the nation because there are no funds available to keep them here following the purchase of two works by Titian for £100m. The latest artwork poised to join the exodus of masterpieces is St John the Evangelist by the Italian Old Master Domenichino. Despite being in the UK for the past 100 years, the painting is likely to leave the country. Professor David Ekserdijian, of the Government’s Reviewing Committee has said:

“It is the best work by the artist remaining in private hands and its departure from the UK would be lamentable.”

Works to be lost from the country include:

Raphael’s Head of a Muse The “exquisite” drawing from 1510 – a preparation for a commission by Pope Julius II – looks likely to be on its way to America after being bought for a record £29.2m, even though “every possible effort should be made to raise enough money to keep it in the country”.

Turner’s Pope’s Villa at Twickenham One of Turner’s most important works is already in America after an export ban last year failed to find any institutions willing or able to pay the £5.4m the 1808 painting was worth.

Domenichino’s St John the Evangelist It will be “lamentable” if this £9.2m work from 1621-29 left the country after more than 100 years, according to the Reviewing Committee. Lamentable, but likely.

Works saved include:

Titian’s Diana and Actaeon A six-month campaign persuaded the public, the Scottish government and the Heritage Lottery Fund to part with £50m to buy the Old Master’s work from the Duke of Sutherland last year. Fundraising is due to start shortly to raise the same sum for the companion painting, Diana and Callisto, by 2012. Both were created between 1556 and 1559.

Turner’s Blue Rigi One of the finest watercolours by one of Britain’s greatest painters, an 1842 view of a Swiss mountain, was saved in 2007 after the Tate raised £4.95m. More in The Independent on Sunday HERE.

Banksy’s undoubted knack for exploiting the feverish interest his anonymity provokes has certainly created a lot of hype around the documentary Exit. The point is, says Andrew Johnson in The Independent on Sunday HERE, it isn’t really about him. It’s more about the creation of another street artist, Mr Brainwash, and an exposé of the art market and “suckers” with too much money who want to be part of the latest thing.

Tech

In August 2009, it was hard to move around Beijing without seeing an advert for Google. China was awash with the logo of a company whose motto is “Don’t Be Evil”, and the scale of the investment was a palpable endorsement of China’s vital importance to the economics of any global company. Skip forward to January this year, and an official blogpost announced summarily that the censored results that China demanded from Google were no longer compatible with the company’s philosophy. Off the record, employees said the company would pull out of China imminently.

So did the search giant really decide to eschew profits in favour of a defence of free speech? Or did it realise it would never be the biggest search engine in China and simply cut its losses? The question that matters is simple: what does Google stand for? More in The Telegraph HERE. And the FT asks, having acquired power over those it freed, is Google now a monopoly HERE and how ethically is its power used HERE.

In the week when three Google execs have been convicted and awarded six-month suspended sentences for allowing a clip of an autistic boy being bullied to play on Google Video (see more HERE), The Observer asks HERE, When anyone can have their say, what use is the stuff that comes out the other end? What can be done with it, and who is going to be in charge of quality control when things go wrong? And Microsoft has attacked ‘aggressive’ Google, as covered in The Sunday Telegraph HERE.

Opera

The people of Thurrock are being promised a piece of Covent Garden, complete with the sparkling glamour of its greatest operatic divas and prima ballerinas. On Tuesday, the Royal Opera House will officially take over the centre of an empty 14-acre site near the Thames in Essex. Tony Hall, Royal Opera’s chief executive has said:

“I love the fact Covent Garden is going to do something in a place that is half an hour away from London by train, but could be miles and miles away in every other way… It is a place that is relatively deprived, for the south-east, and that has a history of manufacturing that makes it the right place for us.” More in The Observer HERE.

Design
The Independent on Sunday has picked up two top honours in the prestigious Best of News Design awards. Organised by the Society for News Design, the professional organisation for the world’s graphic designers who work in the industry, the awards recognise the best from around the world in newspaper production. More in The Independent on Sunday HERE.

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News Summary: 26th February 2010

February 26th, 2010 - 
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Media

The Home Office-commissioned Sexualisation of Young People Review we mentioned yesterday HERE is today making headlines for the recommendation that music videos featuring “sexually provocative” images or lyrics should be banned until after the 9pm watershed. The report says:

“Music channels and videos across all genres have been found to sexualise and objectify women. Women are often shown in provocative and revealing clothing and are depicted as being in a state of sexual readiness. Males, on the other hand, are shown as hyper-masculine and sexually dominant.”

Other key recommendations of the report include:

  • Launching an online “one-stop-shop” to allow the public to voice their concerns regarding irresponsible marketing which sexualises children;
  • Encouraging the government to support the Advertising Standards Agency to take steps to extend existing regulatory standards to include commercial websites;
  • Ensuring games consoles are sold with parental controls already switched on. Purchasers can then choose to unlock the console if they wish to allow access to adult and online content.

You can read the full report in PDF HERE and coverage in The Guardian HERE and HERE; Independent HERE, HERE and HERE; Times HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

The latest report on the BBC strategic review – to be published next month – is that the Mark Thompson, the Director General, is to admit that the corporation has become too large and must shrink to give its commercial rivals room to operate. It is thought he will announce the closure of the digital radio stations 6 Music and Asian Network and introduce a cap on spending on broadcast rights for sports events of 8.5 per cent of the licence fee, or about £300 million. He will also pledge to close BBC Switch and Blast!, leaving the lucrative teenage market to ITV and Channel 4. But BBC Three, which is aimed at 16 to 35-year-olds will not be touched. More in The Guardian HERE; Times HERE, HERE and HERE; and Telegraph HERE.

Cinema

We’ve been covering the Alice in Wonderland/ Odeon boycott story for a while now; most recently HERE, but today it appears it is to be no more; Britain’s biggest cinema chain, a week before the film is released and, having chastised Disney for threatening the “existence of cinemas”, has decided it will show after all.

The battle over Alice in Wonderland was always a high-stakes game; the film is expected to be one of the highlights of the cinematic year, and the 3-D element makes it likely to remain open for longer and attract higher ticket prices. Neither the studio nor Odeon would comment on the concessions made, but an Odeon spokesman said they had reached an “enduring agreement … encompassing all the different aspects of both companies’ commercial relationship”. More in The Guardian HERE; Independent HERE; and Times HERE.

Art

An art exhibition portraying Jesus as the gay son of a prostitute has been closed after the organisers at Granada University in Spain admitted that furious protests from churchgoers meant that they could no longer guarantee the safety of its creator, Fernando Bayona. More in The Times HERE.

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News Summary: 16th February 2010

February 16th, 2010 - 
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Radio

The BBC Trust has concluded its nine month in-depth study of Radio 2, whose terms of service licence state that it must appeal to audiences over the age of 35. BBC Trustee David Liddiment, who led the review, said:

“We’re aware of concerns about Radio 2 targeting a younger audience. The current average audience age of 50 is well within the station’s target audience, but the Trust is clear that this must not fall any further, and we would like to see Radio 2 work on its appeal to over 65 year-olds.”

Commercial radio companies have complained that the BBC has been unfairly crowding out its competitors by allowing Radio 2 to focus on a younger audience, pointing to research that shows the number of 15 to 34-year-olds tuning into the station has increased by 62 per cent since 1999, while listeners over the age of 65 have fallen. The switch in breakfast show line-up from a 71 year old Terry, to a 43 year old Chris has offered little reassurance that the trend is about to reverse.

Andrew Harrison, chief executive of RadioCentre, which represents commercial stations, has said:

“We welcome the fact that the BBC Trust is calling for a greater contribution from Radio 2 to the delivery of the BBC’s public purposes, especially in peak times… Over the last decade, Radio 2 has shifted its programming policies – nobody has intervened and this has been disastrous for commercial radio’s heartland audience and for the plurality and diversity of the UK’s fragile radio ecology.”

More in The Guardian HERE and HERE; Independent  HERE; Times HERE; and Telegraph HERE. You can read the BBC Trust’s full review HERE.

Tech

Useful analysis of Google Buzz vs Facebook in The Times today HERE, where it’s argued:

‘It’s not that Mr Zuckerberg is still only 25 and naively arrogant that annoys Google, nor that his company has enticed swaths of senior Google talent. It’s that Facebook’s fast-growing dominance of the “social” internet threatens its rival’s entire business model. If it can sell advertisers access not just to what you’re thinking, but to where you are, who you’re with and what you plan to do, Facebook’s revenues from individually targeted “behavioural” advertising could increase exponentially. And it knows it.’

Background to the Google vs Facebook story can be found HERE; HERE; HERE and HERE.

 Art

The first British exhibition of paintings by the Oscar-winning Welsh actor Sir Anthony Hopkins opens in London today. The 50 landscape and abstract paintings by actor, who has exhibited throughout the US, will be displayed at Gallery 27 in Mayfair, central London, until Saturday before moving to The Dome in Edinburgh for four days on 2 March. Hopkins began painting in 2002, paints every day in his Malibu studio and “takes his art very seriously”, according to exhibition promoter Jonathan Poole, who will play host at this evening’s launch as Sir Anthony is away filming. Five limited-edition prints will be available for purchase. More in the Guardian HERE; and Independent HERE.

Architecture

A plan to mark the entry points to Brick Lane with giant arches in the shape of hijabs has been condemned as offensive to Muslim women and a waste of £1.85m of public funds. Locals have said they risk ghettoising a community that considers itself tolerant and diverse. Tracey Emin, who lives just off Brick Lane, is one of a number of residents in the east London area who claim that Tower Hamlets council risks inflaming racial tension by trying to force the “hijab gates” – as they have become known – through without proper consultation. The Spitalfields Trust, which helped to save many of the historic Huguenot silk weavers’ houses that abut Brick Lane, has urged the council to abandon its “misconceived” idea. The council has extended the deadline for complaints to 22 February. More in the Guardian HERE.

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