Ascent of man

I've been struggling to put Jon Kay, BBC West of England correspondent, and now occasional dep for Bill Turnbull on Breakfast, in the right lineage. Have decided it's somewhere between Matt Lucas and Michael McIntyre.

Alarm

Twitchy night for neighbours of the MediaCity Salford Quays development. Twitterers report the police as saying "A large industrial firework was set off in a bin".

Essex man and a slice of the gherkin

I understand Sky News are looking at taking a floor of the largely-empty "Gherkin" building in the City, as a site for their weeknight Jeff Randall extravaganza. Expect an opening of whirling helicopter shots zooming in our square-jawed, double-breasted, arms-folded hero, against a twinkling skyline.

This will be something of a sore issue for the business news teams at the BBC, who had to surrender their deal to broadcast live from the Stock Exchange in Paternoster Square at the end of the financial year, in the name of efficiency.

Mandy molly ?

Other broadcasters were interested to note a backstage conversation at the Labour conference in Brighton yesterday, between BBC news chief Helen Boaden and Lord Mandelson. Whether this was normal business or an attempt at mollification over pill questions/leader debates, body language apparently suggested the good Lord was not moved in positive ways.

Site visit

One of these cheerful chappies is 5Live Controller Adrian Van-Klaveren; the other is presenter Richard Bacon. You guess...

Adrian writes about the move to Salford Quays on the radio station's blog.

And if you want it, there's another 64 pictures of the day out Flickr.

Pills Part 3

Oh dear. Andrew Marr has been talking to the Media Guardian. Thus...


"It was a tough question and I clearly thought carefully before asking it," he said. "I decided it was a fair question to ask or I wouldn't have asked it." He added that he had not referred the question to more senior BBC executives beforehand as he did not need to. "I am given authority to ask what I think is appropriate," he said. Marr said that despite the criticism, he would not apologise, particularly as no complaints had been made to him from No 10 or the government.

Pills Part 2

Odd. Lord Mandelson takes questions about Gordon and his lack of medication on Sky and GMTV - and they're not there on Today on Radio 4. I'm anxious that, like the Gilligan precedent, this will be a slow burn through several exchanges of letters.

By the way, on the Telegraph site, there's overwhelming branding for Telegraph TV on the Andrew Marr show clip - with the final sign off being "An ITN Production" !

Pills

Oh dear. Should Andrew Marr have asked Gordon Brown if he was using prescription painkillers and pills to help him through ?

The blue touch-paper of politics has been lit. Lord Mandelson will say it's a disgraceful smear, and kick the BBC from here to as long as he can make the row last. Let's hope the Marr team has constructed a strong enough case to enable them to pose the question in the first place.

The internet rumour-mongers commenting at Iain Dale's blog say Marr phrased the question wrongly, achieving a non-denial; they say the proper rumour is that the PM is on anti-depressants. It's all very nasty, and a distraction.

Tusa weapon

In case you didn't have time to read Sir John Tusa's open letter to Sir Michael Lyons and Mark Thompson in The Times, here's his action points for each, to put the BBC back on track.

Lyons
1: Announce that Mark Thompson's successor as DG will be paid £400k a year.
2: Announce that all future recruitment to senior posts will be scaled down pro rata. (Presumably there comes a point where, if you halve all senior managers' pay, the junior managers earn more than their bosses ?)
3: Patch up your quarrel with Ben Bradshaw.
4: Embrace the scrutiny of the NAO, worry less about Ofcom.

Thompson
1: Declare salaries paid to talent.
2: Renegotiate Jonathan Ross' contract downwards
3: Slim down or abolish the "compliance" regime, and take an axe to marketing.
4: Impose a moratorium on any new guidelines and burn most existing volumes
5: Think harder about how to communicate a new 21st century view of BBC values to staff and audiences.

It's for charitee

The Mail has a gallery of photos from the Newsroom's Got Talent event. The BBC fielded Emily Maitlis, Fiona Bruce, Kate Silverton and Joanna Gosling, performing numbers from The Sound of Music. The two young male family members are not credited, but they look a little like Ben Brown, and the self-effacing Craig Oliver, normally a force on the other side of the camera, but clearly easing out of his shyness. Pic from Wiredimages.

Friday music 25 September

Markeys - 'Last Night' (live)
by mickeynold


The Mar-keys were the first house band for Stax Records, in Memphis. Formed in 1958 as The Royal Spaces, they joined the company when it was called Satellite, and initially backed Rufus Thomas and his daughter Carla. Their rotating roster of session men included Steve Cropper on guitar, Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass, Al Jackson on drums and Booker T Jones on organ (These four were also Booker T and the MGs) Charles "Packy"Axton and Don Nix on saxophones, Wayne Jackson on trombone and trumpet (he went on to lead The Memphis Horns). Isaac Hayes also featured occasionally.

On this, the pianist is Jerry Lee "Smoochy" Smith, who co-wrote the song, a number 3 hit in the US in 1961 - he left the band in 1962.

Flat ?

PaidContent's take on the latest monthly stats for the online sites of UK national newspapers - "the big traffic growth may be tailing off". August unique users to the seven sites monitored for ABCe came in at 139.8 million - 4.3 percent down from July, and 7.1 percent below June’s record high of 150.59 million.

It would be interesting to know if other UK news-based sites - BBC, Sky in particular - sense a plateau.

Get the message

Small, not unexpected firestorm at 5Live where a revamp of the website is to be accompanied by closure of message boards - 1389 comments posted by 0800 this morning, most against the move.

Survey

Good old BBC Trust - no better time to ask the licence payers what they think of BBC1, BBC2, BBC Four and Red Button stuff. 17 questions in an online survey, with question 17 being "Anything else you'd like to bang on about ?" (or similar).

Older women

Broadcast claims Mark Thompson has told Helen Boaden (and other directors) to find a female presenter over 50 in the next 12 months...

Toiletries

On the left, a hair-conditioner called "spray-on shine"; on the right, a deodorant. My advice - never put them so close together....

Salmond Broadcasting Corporation

The SNP's Culture Minister Mike Russell says an independent Scotland would see the BBC replaced by a new state-funded broadcaster, funded by a mixture of licence fee, ads and from direct taxation. The BBC, natch, would be classed as a foreign broadcaster, available only on cable and satellite - but will it be able to recover a second licence fee from Scottish households ? I doubt it...

On the prom

MediaCityUK developers Peel have unveiled proposals for a new canalside promenade, as part of their "public space" commitment to the development of Salford Quays, sited in front of the Imperial War Museum North, and creating a pedestrian circuit via a new footbridge which links the MediaCityUK piazza and The Lowry.


Again, the design talent is not from "The North", but FoRM associates, an urban landscape team based in Narrow Street, E14 - though they have already won awards for their work on Irwell City Park.

Lineage

Interesting model for funding "citizen journalism" - pick and choose from a list of story pitches, make a donation, and when your chosen theme hit its the right price, the story gets done. Los Angeles-based Spot.us is worth a look.

Party time

The Evening Standard has been speculating what sort of party Newsnight might throw when it reaches its 30th birthday in January next year. There's another event coming up that might be worth noting - Jeremy Paxman turns 60 on 11 May 2010.

Will he surge on through, like Humphrys, Wogan and others ? Or is it time to move on ?

Front

The fragrant Barbara Follett has announced the listing (Grade II) of the facade of Marks & Spender's Pantheon store on Oxford Street. Built in 1938 by Edward Lutyens' little boy Robert, the original interior had walnut counters and wall panelling, teak doors, oak block floors and coffered ceilings - all long gone. The polished black granite, the envy of many a posh kitchen designer, will now stay for some time....

Well I never...

Unsurprising findings from a poll from PaidContent UK on whether or not people would pay for online news....

Missing people

This new ad for BBC Local Radio is lovely, but shows a rather under-populated UK.





It was made by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R (Just one company !)

Today's sitrep

Former producer Tim Luckhurst rounds up the usual suspects - Liddle and Harding - for one of his occasional pieces looking at the prospects for Radio 4's Today programme, this time in The Independent. He notes the move of Angus Stickler to Newsnight, bemoaning the lact of news-making investigations now, and looks at the dropping of Ed Stourton for Justin Webb in the presenter roster. "Insiders describe replacement of Stourton as a textbook BBC cock-up: maximum embarrassment for zero net gain". But audiences are up....

Political process

Quentin Letts being a little too frank about journalists and party conferences in the Independent on Sunday. All good stuff - my favourite bit:

The BBC sends mobile studios, miles of cables, clipboard poppets, World Service eggheads, online nerds and Andrew Neil's make-up artiste. Sky News dispatches Adam Boulton, Jon Craig and a hit squad of producers and camera geezers. As far as the newspapers are concerned, most lobby reporters attend, along with political columnists (who seem to spend most of the time in their hotel rooms), editors and their furtive deputies. Even the leader writers turn up, knobble-headed, hygienically challenged, whinneying as they examine (eyes up close, glasses off) the texts of the speeches.

Metal Boxes

The Miami Herald reports that school lockers (where Screech hid in Saved by the Bell; where Britney danced in Baby One More Time; where things are still hidden in High School Musical) are on the way out, as textbooks migrate to cd, or online.

I know a couple of workplaces that would hope this trend continues...

Marble table with a difference...

Haven't done furniture for a bit, but here's a dining table for those who get bored with dinner party conversation - stick a marble in a maple groove and see where it ends up.






Designed by Ontwerpduo. Spotted by Catharine.

Currently independent....

John Hardie, the new man at the helm of ITN, gives an interview to The Times.

Who next, Boris ?

Sir Richard Rogers has resigned as an architectural advisor to Boris Johnson. From Building Design's account, there seems to be no rancour, but a slight sense of frustration from the knight at actually doing things within initiatives like Great Spaces. Who stands next in London with the same weight and experience ?

Friday music 18 september 2009

I first heard this by Taj Mahal, but its route to the great bluesman clearly owes a lot to this version by the Flying Burrito Brothers, covering the Dave Dudley classic Six Days On The Road.

Radio and/or tv

I love radio, but I'm still not sure it needs to morph into tv to survive. The Pure Sensia tries not to look too much like a tv or a computer with its ovoid box. It will offer you DAB, DAB+, Internet Radio, streaming from your computer, slideshows from radio stations etc, Twitter and Facebook applications. All for £250 in shops from October.

Now if you added a keyboard and a Freeview card...

Assessing fees

The polling game is a slippery slope for the BBC. It loves getting backing as a "trusted organisation" - but that doesn't necessarily pay the rent. The Trust liked its poll which said people would rather have £5.50 off the licence fee than subsidise an alternative source of regional news - which others found less surprising. The DCMS then produced its own poll which changed the results round.

Now the Daily Mail, through a survey of 3,000 by You Gov, suggests the a smaller licence fee is top of most voters' agenda for cuts.

Open the box

Some ideas peter out. 12 months is up for the BBC's attempt to make global trade issues comprehensible through tracking their own container across the seas and continents. It got stuck in Japan in April, and now the BBC website is rather vague about where it might be - the un-dated piece on offer says it's thought to be en route to Thailand. The working of the current tracking device is described as intermittent (suspect that means broken) - and the piece is coy about other means of finding the box.

I'd be interested to read the expenses claim. Jeremy ?

Changing chairs

The BBC Trust is re-structuring BBC Worldwide's governance, moving out BBC-employed execs like Jana Bennett, from the Worldwide Board, and saying that the new chairman of Worldwide (replacing Etienne De Villiers) must be one of the wider BBC's non-executive directors.


That means a choice from Marcus Agius, Val Gooding, Dr Mike Lynch, David Robbie, Dr Samir Shah, Robert Webb. Let's say 6/4 Marcus Agius..

Wot next ?

Ben Bradshaw doesn't like the Trust; the Tories not sure about Ofcom; Phil Redmond wants to merge everyone. Nobody offering alternatives - not sure this amounts to a broadcasting strategy for "Digital Britain."

Professing

Congratulations to Steve Schifferes, a familiar figure to many at Television Centre, who's going to be the first Professor of Financial Journalism at City University. Steve's by-line has been on many money stories on BBC News online. Found this picture via the web from the 1968 Yearbook of Livingston High, and thought it worth risking copyright to share with you....

Flippin' explanation

Nieman Journalism Lab explains the Fast Flip deal - and how Google is sharing ad revenue with the 40 publishers who have signed up. You'll note that the BBC News pages come from the international-facing site, so the money comes back into BBC Worldwide, and presumably into the BBC World balance sheet....

Flippin' fast

GoogleLabs' new Fast Flip application is extraordinary - eventually I'll work out what to do with it....

We are not stepping backwards...

Some odds and ends on the "size and scope" of the BBC are slightly clearer after Mark Thompson's interview in the Media Guardian - and some are murkier.


On stats, I presume the BBC minder offered the headcount forecast - claimed to be around 19,750 in 2004, and forecast to fall to 15,800 in 2012. That estimate might surprise a few insiders.


On BBC Worldwide, Mark can always rely on John Smith to find a way of getting a few bob into the coffers - it's more or less inevitable that the Trust will ask for some partial sell-off anyway. I've heard a rumour that one contender might be audio books (which would be a shame).


On US imports, there's no push back on the idea that the BBC will drop big series (but presumably could win some back through co-production funding in the long-term).


On channels, Mark's quoted phrases is "narrower services", rather than axing platforms. Sir Michael might be more aggressive.


On executive pay, the minder was unhelpful - citing an internal report that Mark Thompson earned 40 % of the median pay of chief executives of comparable organisations such as the Royal Mail last year. Few people would compare running the Royal Mail and the BBC in terms of status and fun ... and the jobs you might go on to afterwards.

Words

Nice 10th birthday tribute to Blogger (the service that brings you these pages) from Observer new media watcher John Naughton. It includes these stats (for those 0f you who have moved on to Twitter) about blogging's apparently robust state of health.....


Blogger (now owned by Google) has 10 million "active" users, or people who have posted something new over the past 30 days. The number of "seven-day active" users has doubled over the past two years. Blogger has 300m unique visits a month. In an average minute, 270,000 words are written on its blogs, and something like a quarter of a trillion words have been written on Blogger since its foundation.

Corrie

According to BBC tech head-honcho Erik Huggers, the most searched-for words on I-Player are "Coronation Street". He says the BBC wants to offer the facility to third parties - the BBC wants to be everyone's friend, at the moment. From Brand Republic.

Lyons' den

Is BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons creating too much expectation around the "size of the BBC" debate ? Here's a quote from him on this week's R4 Media Show.

"We have already done work to reshape the BBC on behalf of the people who pay for it, that is the job of the Trust. We have been doing this work over two years.

"We now believe it needs to be accelerated and we have asked the director general to begin a radical review and it may lead to changes in services and indeed the end of some services."

Gas bag

The King's Cross gasholders have inspired some neat ideas for re-use, at the heart of King's Cross Central, the mega-development behind the station. Building Design has images of five of the short-listed proposals, included this Feix Merlin idea for a 21st century helter-skelter.

Where are they now ?

It's not often the disparate interests of this blogger overlap. Football and property development have collided as Bryan Robson's nascent sportsground company Robson Lloyd goes into a joint venture with property consultants GVA Grimley, reports Property Week. Robson Lloyd's been going for three years, but their case studies suggest business has been thin - some work in Burscough, and proposals for Rossendale.

Under powered

I'm sure there's a strategy, but it's slightly odd that Radio 5Live has decided on a week of broadcasting from Hull, for what it calls its first Octoberfest. Let's hope that there's loads of digital listeners there, because I'm pretty sure that part of the east coast is low on medium wave reception.

Thompson lunches

Charlie Beckett at Polis writes about lunch with the DG, and BBC size.

Size matters, again

Sir Michael Lyons, in his open letter to licence-fee payers, is joining in the Autumn term debate - what is the right size for the BBC ?

I'm never sure it's sensible to join that debate; but Sir Michael is also on dangerous ground with other parts of his strategy. A MORI survey asked viewers what should be done with licence fee income not used for Digital Switchover. Around half of those asked would prefer the licence cut by £5.50, compared to just six percent who wanted additional money to be spent on regional news on other channels. Tories like Jeremy Hunt can easily take that "either/or" element out of the equation, and say viewers want to pay less in a world where there's so much else to chosose from.

On the size debate, is the BBC measured by headcount, wage bill, number of channels, hours of output, size of buildings, clusters of software developers, stretch limos of talent ? Governments like headcount reductions best, but Sir Michael and the Trust want the BBC Executive to produce the answer to life and everything before too long.....

"... we ... acknowledge that as digital change accelerates, so the need to reshape the BBC on behalf of the public becomes more pressing. That’s why, before the summer break, the Trust agreed with the Director General that he should conduct a thorough review of what the BBC should concentrate on in the future. In particular we want this to consider whether the BBC is the right size and is operating within the right boundaries, what its role should be in a fully digital world, how it can support the wider industry and UK economy, and how it can provide more of the genuinely fresh and new programmes that audiences want".

Quite a piece of homework.

Post it

Bit late with this "atmosphere" video for the MediaCity development in Salford (made by Andrew Li, from the Midlands), made to go with a relaunched website which went live on Septembder 1st. 5,000 odd views on YouTube, so far, but the comments function has been blocked !

Ripple effects

A good post from James Cridland about the backwash/opportunities for others in the Evans-for-Wogan move, with some interesting comments from readers about the consequences for Radio 1.

Mr Cridland has left the BBC - and I expect his blog will now be livelier.

More Blag-ging

The Blagojevich Book Tour - enjoy The Chicago Tribune's take.

Utterly compliant

The Guardian reports that the BBC Trust is sending the heavies into Radio 2 to make sure they've got their minds right after Sachsgate.

"Still shakin' it, boss, still shakin'. I'm shakin' it, boss."

Consequences

Nick Ferrari (at the invitation of Newsnight) and Jon Gaunt (because Sky put him on Sky News) have both tried to use the Evans-for-Wogan move as evidence that Radio 2 is too rich, and therefore too powerful to be taken on head-to-head by commercial radio, and should be privatised. Meanwhile Andrew Harrison of the Radio Centre (commercial radio mouthpiece) says the arrival of Evans means the continuation of a dangerous and deliberate move by the BBC to reduce the average age of Radio 2 listeners - already down from a staggering 53 to a worrying 50 !

Matthew Bannister played the role of BBC apologist in the Newsnight debate, but it will soon be time for Bob Shennan to make his first public appearance as Controller R2. A reminder that he is probably biding his time until the BBC Trust review of Radio 2 and its remit, by David Liddiment, is in his hands. The Guardian got a quote from Mr Liddiment on the back of James Murdoch's Taggart lecture which might be worrying for Bob .. "Even David Liddiment, a former director of the ITV network and now a BBC trustee, while disagreeing with the Murdoch line on the BBC, conceded that there is some common ground between the man who chairs the pay-TV giant Sky and the rest of the industry, which, he said, is facing "significant challenges exacerbated by current economic problems".

Elsewhere, film blog Film Shaft says fans of Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode might find the pair still together in the move to Radio 2 drivetime.

Early Ferrari on the A3....

The BBC's press release accompanying the news that Radio 2 listeners will wake up to Chris Evans from 2010 features a very serious-looking photo of the incumbent. Now Mr Shennan, have we got the contract clear ? No chance Chris will be looking to do four days, say, from 2011 ?

Cost and value

The Sunday Times says the BBC Trust and Executive have agreed a formula for "measuring the value of specific talent”.

A combination of special audience surveys, ratings, audience appreciation indexes, plus how stand-ins measure up, and some view of commercial pay rates (it says) will be applied to regular performers - apparently Kate Silverton and Fearne Cotton are up first.

I hope some of this is wrong. If not, they'll soon have to apply "formulas" to programmes, which will mean the end of Radio 3, much of BBC4, all local radio after 6pm etc. Maybe when they apply "formulas" to executive and Trustees pay, they'll come to their senses.

Swine Flu

Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson has been quite bullish about stats from Scotland, suggesting that the earlier return to school there has not brought about a new surge in swine flu cases. (Nursing Times, amongst others).

The emerging story from the US is different, eg 2,000 cases at Washington State University, and maybe Liam should wait until UK universities start to fill up...

Meerkat Update

Buster Dover (really ?) of ad agency VCCP explains to a Facebook Developer event the origins and online development of "Compare The Meerkat".

Not quite M&S but...

MediaCity UK developers Peel have submitted a planning application for a supermarket at Salford Quays... For BBC staff moving from London, it's going to mean a further lifestyle change; farewell Waitrose, M&S, Fresh'n'wild, Selfridges Food Hall, etc - hello Booths, a Lancashire-based chain of 25 stores.

Watch and learn

How to get YOUR version of a news story to the top of the Google News search engine....

Hanging on every word

Interesting chart of UK newspaper twitter feeds, ordered by number of followers. Times Fashion in second place ?

Nostalgia

The BBC has sold its rather tired Woodlands site, just to the north of the A40 flyover of Wood Lane, to Imperial College.

I spent nearly two years working out of A100 Woodlands in the early nineties, with colleagues Mike Scarlett and Dick Stibbons, writing design briefs for a never-to-be-built news centre on the White City site. We had to be at Woodlands to be under the beady eye of Tim Manning, project manager from Planning and Installation Department (TV) who thought he was in charge; and Peter Jeffree, from the BBC's Architectural and Civil Engineering Department, who was probably in charge because he held the biggest budget.

Mike and Dick loved computers and other toys. They would compete against the clock to install additional memory boards. We had an Supercalc accommodation schedule so large and complicated (for those days) that if you hit the recalculate button just before lunch, there was no point coming back for two hours. One day I said we could do with some more professional-looking communications; the next day all our PCs had the then pioneering (and expensive) Quark Express installed. At one stage, Dick was buying so much stuff his next purchase became obvious - our own trolley to get the stuff in from the delivery bay.

Back on deck after short break stimulating the French ec0monic recovery (12 euros for an average hotel breakfast !)

New term in all key fields.....

The BBC: The "case" for Mark Thompson: a neatly-placed feature in Management Today bolsters the polymath/nice guy/impossible job image - but it begs a legacy question. How will the Thompson regime be remembered ?

The others: Who will replace Andy Duncan at C4 ? Surely Peter Fincham would relish a chance to show the BBC what it missed by deciding he should carry the can for the dodgy Queen trailer. Jay Hunt is still reaping the benefit of some Fincham strategies, including the cheap but effective One Show.

Construction work: The contractors installing a Japanese-style x-crossing for pedestrians at Oxford Circus seem to be running a really untidy site - which is unusual for pernickety clients like the Crown Estate.

More later......