Colin Crummy | The Wire | Press Gazette

Health warnings on car ads to be imposed

Posted by Colin Crummy on 5 June 2008 at 11:39
Tags: Advertising, Broadcast, Magazines, Television

The European Commission is considering imposing tobacco-style health warnings on car advertisements across media platforms, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Green activists, car makers and advertisers will be consulted today at a meeting in Brussels about the proposals which could see 20 per cent of ad space whether in magazines, posters and TV clips, devoted to information about C02 emmissions and fuel consumption.

Three Sky News drivers jailed in Zimbabwe

Posted by Colin Crummy on 3 June 2008 at 15:49
Tags: Broadcast, Television

Three Sky News drivers have been jailed in Zimbabwe after being caught with the broadcaster’s satellite dish, according to Media Guardian.

A Zimbabwean court has sentenced the three South African men to six months imprisonment for handing illegal broadcasting equipment, after they were caught at a police roadblock with a satellite dish marked with the network’s stickers.

Sky News said it was appealing the “unjust” decision.

BBC axes What the Papers Say

Posted by Colin Crummy on 29 May 2008 at 10:55
Tags: Journalism

The BBC has axed its news review programme What the Papers Say, reports MediaGuardian.

The programme was the second longest running show on television. The BBC said it would not broadcast a new series as the way audiences consumed news had changed.

The What the Papers Say awards are now in doubt. Programme makers ITV Productions said they were looking for another home for the ten minute show.

ITV in trouble over failure to meet regional quota

Posted by Colin Crummy on 22 May 2008 at 11:45
Tags: Broadcast, Television

Ofcom has threatened ITV with action over the broadcaster’s failure to meet its out-of-London production quota, according to the regulator’s report on nations and regions.

The watchdog could fine ITV, shorten or revoke its licence.

The broadcaster is also planning to make 89 staff, mostly working in production, redundant from its offices in Manchester and Leeds, according to Broadcast.

Countryside overtakes urban areas in broadband uptake

Posted by Colin Crummy on 22 May 2008 at 11:26
Tags: New Media, Online

Rural Britain has overtaken urban areas in terms of broadband internet connections for the first time, according to a survey by media watchdog Ofcom.

The number of homes with high-speed connections increased to 59 per cent in rural areas compared to 57 per cent in urban areas.

Ofcom said the findings signalled the end of fears of a “digital divide” between the countryside and urban areas.

BBC and ITV pay price for phone-in deception

Posted by Colin Crummy on 9 May 2008 at 15:36
Tags: Broadcast, Television

The BBC has admitted it kept £106,000 from premium rate phone calls on unnamed shows that should have been given to charity, MediaGuardian reports.

The BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said the money would be paid to the charities and the corporation would make an on-air apology. The problem involved BBC Worldwide subsidary Audiocall, which supplies premium rate phone-calls to many BBC shows but no senior staff at BBC Worldwide, the corporation or working on the shows were implicated in the deception, Lyons said.

Yesterday, broadcasting regulator Ofcom fined ITV a record £5.7m “for seriously and repeatedly misleading its audience” on 86 separate occasions over four years. Viewers wasted £7.8m on worthless premium rate calls to shows like Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.

Al Jazeera to face £1m tribunal

Posted by Colin Crummy on 1 May 2008 at 15:37
Tags: Broadcast, Television

A former Al Jazeera employee is seeking compensation in excess of £1m following her dismissal from the news channel, reports MediaGuardian.

Jo Burgin, the former head of planning at Al Jazeera, is suing the channel for sex, race and religious discrimination.

The trial has been adjourned and will not be heard until at least September because of a mix-up over the availability of a three-person judging panel.

Five CEO resigns to make way for Airey

Posted by Colin Crummy on 1 May 2008 at 15:03
Tags: Broadcast, Television

Five CEO Jane Lighting is to step down from the role to make way for incoming chair Dawn Airey.

Lighting announced her departure today, admitting that her vision for the broadcaster was not the same as its owners RTL Group and that ”common agreement over strategic direction” could not be reached.

Lighting will take six months gardening leave. Five’s executive director of sales Mark White will take over until Airey’s arrival.

Airey, who resigned as head of global content at ITV to take up the job at Five, is expected to join the broadcaster within the next 12 months.

British journalist tells of Iraq kidnap

Posted by Colin Crummy on 30 April 2008 at 09:40
Tags: Broadcast, Television

A British journalist who was held hostage by Iraqi militia for over two months has spoken about his ordeal.

CBS producer Richard Butler was dragged from his hotel into a car by gunmen on 9 February and taken to a unknown location in Basra.

Butler, who has worked for Newsweek, the Sunday Telegraph and the New York Times, said he had prepared himself to die and reached the lowest point when he believed his translator had been killed. He found out, upon his release, the translator was alive and well.

ITN rejects Union request for further talks on benefits cuts

Posted by Colin Crummy on 30 April 2008 at 09:24
Tags: Broadcast, Television

ITN has rejected calls from the broadcasting union BECTU and the National Union of Journalists to engage in further talks on proposed cuts to staff benefits.

ITN is looking to make £300,000 in savings which the Unions said would be achieved through “a significant attack on current benefits”. These include cuts in meal allowances, transport allowances and changes to staff time off at weekends and between shifts.

Gilligan defends Livingstone campaign

Posted by Colin Crummy on 30 April 2008 at 09:14
Tags: Journalism, National Newspapers

Evening Standard reporter Andrew Gilligan has defended his campaign against London mayor Ken Livingstone.

Interviewed in the Guardian, Gilligan argued that he was not working to get Tory mayoral candidate Boris Johnson elected, but to get Livingstone “unelected”. He stated that his relationship with Johnson was “not that close” and that he never had a “non-professional relationship” with Johnson.

Gilligan also claimed to have written a “Truth Check” article, which scrutinising the candidate’s words for lies, about Johnson as he had done for Livingstone but could not explain why it hadn’t been published in the Evening Standard.

Airey exits ITV after less than a year

Posted by Colin Crummy on 29 April 2008 at 17:07
Tags: Broadcast, Television

ITV managing director of global content, Dawn Airey, has left the broadcaster after just eight months in the role.

Airey is set to join the RTL Group in a role that will include chairing Channel Five.

She had been recently promoted to be an executive on ITV’s board and was seen as a leading candidate to become ITV chief executive after the departure of Michael Grade in 2010.

More than 100,000 sign Independent’s petition to save journalist

Posted by Colin Crummy on 29 April 2008 at 09:08
Tags: National Newspapers

The Independent’s petition to save Afghan student Sayed Pervez Kambaksh from the death sentence has collected over 100,000 signatures.

Kambaksh,23, has been sentenced to death after he was convicted of blasphemy for distributing a pamphlet about women’s rights.

BBC radio chief rails against radio privatisation calls

Posted by Colin Crummy on 28 April 2008 at 17:07
Tags: Broadcast, Radio

The BBC director of audio & music, Jenny Abramsky, has rejected calls for the privatisation of Radio One and Radio Two.

Speaking at the Radio Reborn conference in London, Abramsky said it would be a “cultural travesty” to privatise the music networks.

She was responding to a speech by television executive and the man behind Big Brother, Peter Bazalgette, who last week called for the radio stations and Channel 4’s privatisation to fund public service content from the arts.

Elsewhere at the conference, Channel 4 radio boss Natalie Schwartz confirmed that the project will go ahead but refused to set a date for the launch of the second national ditigal multiplex.

UBM to move tax residency from UK to Ireland

Posted by Colin Crummy on 28 April 2008 at 15:05
Tags: Magazines

Specialist publishers United Business Media, parent company of CMP Information, has announced it is to move its tax residency from the UK to Ireland.

The move, which the company attributes to a less complicated tax system in Ireland than the UK is not expected to affect jobs or the day-to-day running of the business which includes CMPi titles like Property Week and Building.

News International signs deal with remembrance website

Posted by Colin Crummy on 28 April 2008 at 10:11
Tags: National Newspapers, New Media, Online

News International has signed a deal which will allow The Times and Sunday Times readers to access and comment on death notices online.

The deal with U.S. website Legacy.com, will let readers express condolences and shared remembrances of the dead online. More than 650 newspapers in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. are already affiliated to the website.

ITV considers giving up public service broadcasting status

Posted by Colin Crummy on 28 April 2008 at 09:23
Tags: Broadcast, Television

ITV is considering handing back some or all of its ITV1 licences to broadcasting regulator Ofcom, a move which would spell the end of its commitment to regional news, according to a MediaGuardian report.

The broadcaster is said to be pressure from shareholders and is “running the numbers” on all options, including returning all 11 ITV1 licences for regions including Granada and Central.

Earlier this month ITV revised its plans to cutback on regional news, but still hopes to make £40m in savings.

Marie Claire goes green, but not that green

Posted by Colin Crummy on 28 April 2008 at 08:57
Tags: Magazines

Marie Claire’s ecological makeover will not mean the end to the more wasteful end of the product, according to editor Marie O’Riordan.

Speaking to MediaGuardian, O’Riordan said the magazine would reflect readers’ environmental dilemmas rather than revolutionarise the way it is produced itself. “We’re not going to turn into the Ecologist because that’s not who we are.”

She also warned of further closures in the glossy market.

C4 should continue as PSB, TV survey finds

Posted by Colin Crummy on 24 April 2008 at 10:21
Tags: Broadcast, Radio, Television

Channel 4 should continue as a public service broadcaster but not at the expense of the BBC, a survey by television industry magazine Broadcast has found.

Some 80 per cent of respondants to the Broadcast poll said they favoured Channel 4 remaining a public service broadcaster but 59 per cent said that top-slicing the BBC licence fee to fund commercial rivals’ public service content was a bad idea.