Tag Archives: bbc

The future is here blah blah blah…

By February 20 2012, 4:00 pm Comments Off

What a start to the year it’s been for IPTV, scarcely out of the news each week since January moved in and the numbers are looking good. Once we moved past BARB’s attempt in January to tell us that online viewing had plateaued, (viewing on PC/Laptop only grew 3% YOY was the headline, buried in the copy was the news that users switched to accessing content through set-top boxes, mobiles and tablets instead) then the numbers started rolling in. C4 banked stellar numbers on 4oD in November, BBC iPlayer recorded half a million hours of viewing on Boxing Day and then posted 4.3m visits on 2nd January – its record day to date. Read more »

What is more difficult, fighting to get content on IPTVs or a seat on a train?

By October 19 2011, 12:16 pm Comments Off

It’s 6.35pm and as my, short on carriages, and over-crowded train pulls out of Waterloo, I’m left wondering whether people prefer for life to be easy, or just not too difficult. The difference? Well, I would argue that we all want an easier life, but it needs some challenges otherwise we get bored. As long as people don’t go out of their way to create difficulty, then we should be happy most of the time.

BBC staff must remember to take ironing boards to Media City

By October 17 2011, 6:11 pm 1 Comment

Recently, I visited Media City, up north, and took a tour around the new working environment of hundreds of BBC staff. On first impression, Media City is like something out of a JG Ballard novel: eerie, shiny, futuristic-looking buildings edged along the Manchester ship canal but there was no people around  In design, Media City is a bit like Berlin.

Berlin minus the Reichstag and its other historical structures, mind you, which is kind of my point. Now I am all for decentralising more  BBC TV and radio brands out of London, as the BBC is a national institution and not the preserve of a supposed cultured London elite. Read more »

From cuts to C****, Paxman follows Naughtie and Marr with c-word gaff [video]

By February 1 2011, 9:12 am 1 Comment

What is it with the c-word and BBC presenters at the moment? They can not seem to help themselves. Jeremy Paxman has become the latest BBC presenter to mistakenly utter the C-word.

On BBC Newsnight last night during a feature on UK Uncut, Paxman said: “Some of the people who ought to be paying taxes so the cunts, cuts aren’t so bad aren’t actually doing so”. From cuts to c****? Apparently so.  See for yourself. Read more »

How Sky News sell-off could come about

By January 26 2011, 1:00 pm 1 Comment

While some have said News Corporation’s offer to sell Sky News, as part of a deal to allow it to take control of BSkyB, is a non-starter (it loses £30m a year) Robert Peston, the BBC’s business editor, has a neat explanation of how this could in fact come to pass.

BSkyB would simply he writes have to guarantee to take output from Sky News for a number of years — probably ten. That way Sky News is far more likely to attract interested buyers, media or otherwise. Read more »

BBC World Service to axe 650 jobs

By January 26 2011, 9:25 am 1 Comment

With the BBC announcing it was cutting its web operation on Monday with 200 jobs lost it is the turn of the BBC World Service today, which is to lose 650 jobs or a quarter of its number.

The cuts come as the government removes Foreign and Common Wealth Office aid funding funding as of 214 as part of its budget cuts. Read more »

BBC spent £200,000 covering rescue of Chilean miners

By October 14 2010, 11:05 am 5 Comments

The Guardian is reporting that the BBC has spent a whopping £200, 000 covering the rescue of the Chilean miners in a reporting effort that involved as many as 40 members of staff.

So expensive has the story proved that BBC’s ability to report from the Cancun climate talks has been compromised. Although tweeters have been praising its wall to wall coverage. Read more »

BBC error sees koran burning preacher Jones renamed Mohamed

By September 9 2010, 8:44 am 7 Comments

As the US pastor Terry Jones says he is not “backing down” from plans to burn copies of the Koran on today the anniversary of 9/11 the BBC on its Ten O’clock News last night told us exactly what it thought of the preacher from Florida. Its on screen graphics credited him as Mohamed Rifaah from Al Azhar University. So it wasn’t Jones speaking, it was Mohamed. Read more »

How Cameron and the Standard tackle growing row over Coulson and phone hacking

By September 3 2010, 2:42 pm 2 Comments

Well he doesn’t, but this story splashed on the front page of the Evening Standard today of David Cameron, wife Sam and new family addition probably encapsulates his attitude, and that of parts of the media (is there an unofficial blackout?), to the growing calls for a government inquiry into the swirl of allegations surrounding his director of comms, Andy Coulson, and the News of the World’s phone hacking.

Read more »

Andy Coulson knew all about phone hacking says New York Times

By September 2 2010, 9:02 am 6 Comments

Andy Coulson might not be long for Number 10 if the phone hacking allegations in The New York Times are true. The paper says he knew all about it.

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