AudioBoo's Mark Rock on 2010 and predictions for 2011

Jemima Kiss has written an article in The Guardian on what Mark Rock head of AudioBoo has to say on 2010 and what will happen in 2011....

What do we have to look forward to in 2011? The past twelve months have been a defining period for the digital industries, says Audioboo chief executive Mark Rock, but there's plenty to come next year as, he predicts, Mark Thompson will stand down and Flickr will be sold.

Here are what appealed to me from what Mark had to say....

What will 2010 be remembered for?
Overall, 2010 was a defining year for so many things - digital, politics, data, mobile. Wikileaks cracked open what hopes to be a better discussion around open data next year and the role of digital in that.
Mobile is (finally) huge thanks to Apple and Google and not the telcos. The BBC was forced to face up to the fact that it can no longer operate like an extension of the civil service and expect us to pay for its inefficiencies.
The government seems to think the digerati in Shoreditch will happily move to Stratford (no). DAB radio is still the floppy disk equivalent of the internet."

What was your best and worst moment?
The best was the surprise at personally ranking so highly in the top 100 tech people in the UK. At least my dad was impressed. The worst?
Worst work moment? The BBC taking 14 months to finally state officially they were too busy to work constructively with us on a professional basis because they were too busy. We're used loads by individual reporters and departments there but their audio is not allowed onto the BBC site. Bizarre."

What's your hot tip for 2011?
Mobile, mobile, mobile. Apps, apple, android, advertising, tablets and the mobile internet.
Traditional TV set top box manufacturers will move to Android as an OS for increased user interaction and lower development costs.
Mark Thompson will gracefully stand down from the BBC. Microsoft will release a poor cousin to the iPad.
Audioboo raising some more cash to go truly global.
Android Marketplace getting less techy and more consumer friendly.
Flickr being sold to a company that actually cares about it. 

You can read the full article at The Guardian.

Belief on Radio 3 - a great listen

Even though I edited them I can really recommend all this series of Belief with Joan Bakewell produced by Dawn Bryan that go out on Radio 3 over the next 5 days starting with Chris Patten today.

1. 

   27 Dec 2010 21:30–22:00

   BBC Radio 3
   Lord Patten

   Lord Patten talks to Joan Bakewell about his Catholic faith.  - Chris Patten tells some wonderful stories including one about his time as Northern Ireland Secretary with his Anglican wife.
2. 28 Dec 2010 21:30–22:00

   BBC Radio 3
   Akram Khan

   Choreographer Akram Khan talks to Joan Bakewell about his Muslim upbringing. Akram is such a gentle soul and I really enjoyed his approach to art and creativity.
3. 29 Dec 2010 21:00–21:30

   BBC Radio 3
   Denis Alexander

   Biochemist Denis Alexander talks to Joan Bakewell about his Christian faith and science. - Denis may be a scientist but based on this programme he can run rings round any theologian and his faith is worked out in the grey parts of the world like when doing human stem cell research and the use of embryos.
4. 30 Dec 2010 21:30–22:00

   BBC Radio 3
   Satish Kumar

   Ecologist and former monk Satish Kumar talks to Joan Bakewell about his Jain beliefs. - At first I thought Satish was  bonkers with some of the extreme Jain beliefs about not harming animals so needs to work everywhere, but when you strip back some of this more wacky ideas here is a man who clearly cares about the environment and is trying to live his ideas out in reality.
5. 31 Dec 2010 20:30–21:00

   BBC Radio 3
   Bonnie Greer

   Writer Bonnie Greer talks to Joan Bakwell about what she believes and why.- I just love the sound of her voice, and here experiences in America are well worth a listen.

It is a real shame these won't get a wider audience on Radio 4 perhaps. But with the magic of iPlayer do take a listen if you possibly can.

Merry Christmas Morris Minor update

Just to let you know that if enjoyed or missed Merry Christmas Morris Minor then it is Radio 4's Podcast of the week so you have 7 days to download it to enjoy both the programme and my Jingle Bells creation for ever.

In addition The Guardian have selected it as one of their Radio Highlights for Christmas Eve....

If the festive spirit is still proving elusive, tune into Merry Christmas Morris Minor! (Radio 4, 11am), one of the sweetest radio offerings over the holiday. The Guardian's Martin Wainwright celebrates the car's 50th birthday in this affectionate tribute, which includes a rendition of Jingle Bells played on a chorus of Morris Minor Horns. That moment really is enough to melt even Scrooge's heart.

Examples of my work - Merry Christmas Morris Minor

For a couple of days I had some great fun making a lovely documentary “Merry Christmas Morris Minor” for Radio 4 all about the Morris Minor car.

Martin Wainwright sets off through the snow to give seasonal best wishes to the owners of Britain’s favourite mass produced car – and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the special edition Morris Minor Million – the rarest minor of all.  Highlight of the programme is a special rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’ from a Morris Minor ‘choir.’  Martin has a soft spot for the little car – often described as a large jelly mould with a speedometer sitting like a clock on the dashboard, and orange fingers for indicators. For it’s time though, according to Stirling Moss, it was a nippy little car. Martin meets a mechanic who ‘soups’ the car up, owners like Dave Brown from ‘The Mighty Boosh’ and the drivers who ‘danced ‘ their Morris Minors at the end of the Manchester Commonwealth Games.  Finally, using the horn, various clunks and clicks from the car door and boot, and a squeak from the chassis, he conducts a unique version of ‘ Jingle Bells’ by the Morris Minor ‘choir.’

Sound Design and production: Mike Thornton
Producers: Janet Graves and Geoff Bird
A Pennine production for BBC Radio 4.

I had the challenge to create the ‘Morris Minor choir’ using only the sounds from a Morris Minor. The horn of course was very useful, being a ‘tuned’ sound and so I loaded it into a sampler. Other sounds I stuffed into my sampler were the lovely squeaking of the car’s suspension, various door, boot and bonnet open and close sounds to form part of the percussion section as well as a multiple of different sounds extracted from a hub cap ending up as various cymbal sounds,  stretching out the sound into a variety of cymbal crashes. We were able to get a tuned note from it so the hub cap also formed part of the harmony and melody of this unique rendition of Jingle Bells.
You will be able to hear this and the documentary on Christmas Eve at 11am on BBC Radio 4 and afterwards on the iPlayer.

ITV to discuss options for 3sixtymedia with Peel

At the end of my previous post I asked...

So it seems to me that ITV will be using the Peel Media studio block for everything except Corrie and the region news. This has got to be good news for Peel but do they have all the capacity to cover all of ITVs studio and post production requirements that they currently have in Quay Street. It is certainly not clear from what has been released today. Anyone at Quay Street shed an light on this?

Well it seems ITV are at least thinking about the issue. This from the Manchester Evening News...

ITV has confirmed that it is in discussion with Peel Media about options for the future of 3sixtymedia – the joint venture technical services operation formed in conjunction with the BBC. Based in Quay Street, Manchester, the company employs 100 people and was formed through the merger of technical staff from the BBC and ITV in 2000. It provides camera crews, sound technicians and lighting expertise for many of the ITV and BBC shows made in Manchester. Having confirmed a move for Coronation Street and other ITV Granada staff to Peel Media's MediaCityUK site at Salford Quays, ITV says that it is as yet unable to spell out exactly what will become of 3sixtymedia and its employees. An ITV spokesman said: “We will continue to produce our core programming from Quay Street in the medium term with 3sixty. In the longer term, ITV plans to take advantage of the shared studios at Media City using 3sixtymedia staff and we will be discussing options with Peel Media.” ITV insist that there is no “question mark” over the jobs of people working at 3sixtymedia and that redundancies are not among the options being considered. Any reduction in head count – or indeed terms and conditions – would be controversial, given that 3sixtymedia's employers are largely made of those transferred from ITV Granada and the BBC in Manchester. One possibility is that 3sixtymedia staff could be merged into Peel Media's new studio business. Joe Livesey, Manchester representative with the broadcasting union, BECTU, said that she currently had no concerns members at 3sixtymedia. We have a good relationship with ITV,” she added.

I am afraid I cannot see how this adds up. Surely Peel have done a deal with SIS to provide the facilities and resources and run the Peel studio block so where will the 3sixtymedia staff fit in? I am surprised that Joe Livesey is not concerned. It seems to me there are too many people for too few jobs in not enough studios and production areas. I do hope I am wrong.

ITV finally agree to move from Quay Street to Media City

This has been the longest on/off saga in the history of Media City. But finally they have done it although they won't have a dedicated building like the BBC. I guess they left it too long for that. This is from the official ITV statement...

ITV has reinforced its commitment to production in the north west after agreeing terms with Peel Media Ltd to move the company’s Manchester base to MediaCityUK in Salford Quays in 2012. “Coronation Street is an incredible brand and as we celebrate its 50th anniversary, it’s fantastic news that we are able to invest in the construction of a modern production centre to ensure that the nation’s best loved soap remains at the top of its game for another half a century.” ITV is set to build a bespoke production and studio centre for Coronation Street. The stand alone facility, which will be subject to a long-term lease, would be built by ITV on a 7.7 acre site at Trafford Wharf, adjacent to the Imperial War Museum North and accessed by a new bridge across the waterway to the main MediaCityUK complex.  A dedicated site has also been earmarked for ITV across several floors within MediaCityUK’s Orange Building, providing modern accommodation equipped with the latest technology for ITV Studios’ production and management teams, ITV regional news, and support staff from across the business.

How Do are reporting....

Around 500 Quay Street staff will be involved in the move, which will also see the iconic Coronation Street set being built anew at a fresh production base at Trafford Wharf, next to the Imperial War Museum. Although details are yet to be confirmed - an ITV spokesperson told How-Do that staff would be informed first - it is expected that the firm will take the top seven floors of the University of Salford’s new building at the Peel Media development. This will leave the bottom four floors of the Orange Building, which is designed by Sheppard Robson, to university staff and students.

Back to the official ITV Statement...

The very latest developments in technology and production facilities are set to be incorporated in the new Coronation Street complex. Plans for the site alongside the historic Manchester Ship Canal include a new external film set – built to greater scale than before to equip the soap for the demands of future broadcasting developments, whilst also replicating the original appearance of Weatherfield. The production centre would also include two sound stage buildings, specialist production facilities and offices, dressing rooms and meeting space for production staff and cast.  In addition to the Coronation Street complex, ITV Studios also has the opportunity to take advantage of MediaCityUK’s dedicated production facilities – one of the largest high definition studio complexes in Europe.  ITV’s regional news team will broadcast from a dedicated studio within the Orange building.

So it seems to me that ITV will be using the Peel Media studio block for everything except Corrie and the region news. This has got to be good news for Peel but do they have all the capacity to cover all of ITVs studio and post production requirements that they currently have in Quay Street. It is certainly not clear from what has been released today. Anyone at Quay Street shed an light on this?

Examples of my work - Young Black and Muslim

This Sunday Radio 4 will be transmitting an interesting documentary I edited and mixed with Carmel Lonergan on how young black men are turning towards Islam as they find it gives them structure and discipline.

More than two thirds of Muslims in Britain are of South Asian ancestry, leading many to believe that Islam is the preserve of these communities. Yet in the last 2 decades, Islam has arguably become the fastest growing religion among Black people in Britain and at a time when the UK appears more disunited over faith, ethnicity and identity than ever before. In this programme the writer and presenter, Dotun Adebayo, explores this phenomenon and asks why is Islam providing such an attractive religious alternative to Christianity for Black Britons seeking spiritual answers? What do they get from Islam that they can't get from their original faith? Is this just a rebellion against the family and society? He will talk to young black people about the reasons for their conversion and to Bishop Joe Aldred from the Black Churches who explains where he thinks the Black Majority Churches are going wrong and why he thinks they need to smarten up and get their message across to young people so they are comfortable with church. Conversion to Islam also has a darker side in the shape of terrorism. As Dotun Adebayo says "Ever since the penny dropped that the Richard Reid, the shoebomber was The Richard Reid I had lived with when he was a teenager in south London, I have been haunted with the question of whether I could have done anything to dissuade my petty thieving 'good lad at heart' flatmate from going down the route of militant Islam. Twenty years later I have to ask is being "young muslim and black" still a "lovely, precious dream".

It was a very enlightening programme to be involved in. Finding instrumental music we could use that reflected black and Muslim youth culture was a challenge! If you miss it on 19th December then do go to the iPlayer and have a listen.

Examples of my work - Cheque Book and Pen

On Thursday BBC Radio 4 will be broadcasting Cheque Book and Pen, a fictional drama on how Les Dawson might have got to host Blankety Blank. Working with Woolyback Productions I recorded on location, edited, tracked and mixed this production which will be the afternoon play on 16th Dec 2010 at 2:15pm.

Johnny Vegas pays tribute to the legendary Les Dawson in a comic flight of fancy. Les has a way with words but is northern, rather crumpled, a little shambolic and an unknown quantity, and delightfully unpredictable when he is faced with representing a national institution. Nicholas Parsons is Farson, a resplendent foil for Dawson. Farson embraces and embodies the hammiest forces of the ‘traditional BBC’. A nemesis to Les and all he stands for and aims to subvert. This homage is a pure joyous farce, taking full artistic license in imagining how the BBC might have engaged the iconic Les to become a game show great in its eighties flagship, Blankety Blank.

Cast:
Les ….. Johnny Vegas
Farson ….. Nicholas Parsons
Helen ….. Shobna Gulati
Dave Parkins ….. Mick Miller
BBC Executive ….. Mark Chatterton
Number Two …… Paul Foot
Doris (Barmaid) ….. Catherine Kinsella
Other parts ….. Peter Slater (and cast).

Written by Andrew Lynch and Johnny Vegas.

Sound Design: Mike Thornton

Directed by Jim Poyser

Producer: Sally Harrison

A Woolyback Production for BBC Radio 4.

I have had great fun working on this production with challenges like a scene in a Manchester club where Les is on stage doing his act whilst the BBC executives were in the audience commenting on his performance. Another scene, that took a few goes to get right, was a montage of agents all ringing the BBC offering their clients for the new presenter of Blankety Blank. Also look out for Shobna Gulati playing a lovely cameo part as the queen phoning the BBC exec to complain.
We were unable to get the original Blankety Blank theme clean but we did get Les’s first show from the BBC archive and I was able to weave that into this production. If you don’t get to listen to Cheque Book and Pen on Thursday then do go to iPlayer and listen to it from there.

Thoughts on 'Free' by Chris Anderson

I have read this book as part of my research for the programme I am taking part in, called Radio Revisited. You can read some more about the reasons for this and what Radio Revisited aims to do on the Vision and Media blog.

There is no doubt that the work is changing and the reduction of digital storage and delivery to an almost un-metered price means a change in what can be charged for and what will become 'free'. Chris Anderson in his previous book The Long Tail showed how cheaper and cheaper digital storage means digital stores can hold a huge inventory and still make money from selling just a couple of units from their many lines.

Atoms v bits
Now in Free, Chris compares anything that is made of 'atoms' as something that has value and can be traded for real money and anything that is made up of 'bits' is perceived as not worth spending money on.  But my problem is that anything I make, as a sound designer, is in 'bits' and so how do I make a living in this 'atoms v bits' world? What I have is intellectual property (IP). So my challenge is to monetize my IP and how to go about making money around 'free'?

Anderson outlines that to compete with 'free' you have to produce something better, or at least different from the 'free' alternatives and quotes examples like people passing the free office coffee machine to go to Starbucks to buy a coffee there. Or in the digital world he compares Microsoft Office with the open source 'office' equivalents, where if you want a relatively reliable product with customer service you buy Microsoft. If you want a 'free' product and can put up with it not being as reliable and can spend the time hunting on the net for the fix, then the open source option offers a low cost solution. Also if what you are doing is being replaced by software and/or 'on line', like travel agents, real estate agents, or stockbrokers then you need to move upstream to use your IP to resolve the more complex problems which people will still pay for.

Journalism
The newspaper industry is being decimated in this 'information free' world. So journalists need to adapt to survive. The top tier newspapers will survive but most journalists aren't employed by them. They work in the 101 magazines and trade journals, local papers etc. The journalists that are prepared to adapt will need to move upstream and become editors and gatekeepers of the information overloaded world of the internet. They also need to become coaches and editors to the growing amateur journalists, bloggers etc.

So it is looking as if the phrase 'time is money' is looking less and less secure....

If you are interested in buying the book then please consider using the links below.

TalkSport wants Radio 5 Live budget review

Following on from the story that BBC enlists commercial sector help to shake up radio where the BBC has asked former GMG Radio boss, John Myers, to carry out a wide-ranging efficiency review. He has been tasked with reviewing the operations at core BBC stations including Radio 1, Radio 2, 6 Music and 1Xtra. The review could lead to a major shake-up of the way BBC Radio operates and is one attempt at ending constant accusations of a "bloated" BBC. In recent years, the commercial sector has heavily criticised the BBC for spending more than is necessary to operate a radio business.

John Plunkett has written a piece in The Guardian which reports that Talksport want this review extended to the speech stations including Radio 5 Live.

However, TalkSport parent company UTV said the review should be extended to include the BBC's national speech stations including news and sport service BBC Radio 5 Live, where "cost per user hour" is four times higher than either Radio 1 or Radio 2. Scott Taunton, the managing director of UTV Media (GB), said the scope of the review was "much too narrow" and "suggests a reluctance by BBC management to bring the overall radio budget under control".  Taunton welcomed the appointment of Myers, but said the efficiency review's remit was too narrow and contradicted the NAO's recommendations. He added that it "suggests a reluctance by BBC management to bring the overall radio budget under control. Rather than focusing on their cheaper pop stations, the BBC should seek efficiency opportunities right across their portfolio." 

So surprise surprise, John Myers' appointment to hopefully pacify the commercial sector doesn't seem to work. However especially for the speech stations and also to a lesser degree the music stations their is a public service remit. Speech radio isn't cheap, it is very labour intensive to produce an hour of programming. The commercial sector by enlarge doesn't commission documentaries, dramas etc because they can't get a commercial return on them. So that is why we have public service broadcasting, to provide content the commercial sector can't do. Now I have no problem with making sure that there isn't money wasted in the BBC but I believe the radio sector provides a very cost effective range of stations to the public.

We need to disconnect to make sense of all this

In my regular scanning of my RSS feed from The media section of The Guardian, I came across this heading and it immediately grabbed my attention as it resonated with thoughts I am currently processing. Jemima Kiss has written a blog entry on the Week Notes section of The Guardian's web site. She starts....

I gave an internal presentation this week on distraction, overload and how we need a better balance of wired and unwired time. Because very little at the Guardian is internal any more (we are all mutualised, after all) I'm going to share it. Less a presentation and more a collection of thoughts and observations, this is about a kind of digital crisis I find myself in. That's partly down to the pressures of the job, commuting and being mother to a little fellow, which puts more pressure on my time and my (already admittedly unrealistic) personal expectations of how much work I could and should be producing.
I've written before about trying to shift away from that world of frenetic, short-form blogging to more in-depth, feature-style posts. Breaking off from our playground of distracting techness is part of that. My posts about email are part of that too - it is a medium designed by accident which was never intended to be used this way. Can't we do something better, something bespoke?

To read the rest of this and to see the Prezi she produced go to Week Notes Blog.

One of the statistics she quotes is that it can take 15 minutes to recover from a one minute interruption. I would certainly agree with that from my own experience. It takes me much less time per day if I 'do' my email in a few intensive blocks rather than keep breaking off to see what emails have come in recently. But as Jemima says there is an expectation with email that you are considered rude if you don't reply instantly.

Your comments would be most welcome...

When is the best time to post on social media?

Erik Qualman at the Socialnomics blog has posted this video from @equalman about the best times to post content on social media and the graveyard slots to avoid.

General guidelines:

• Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are your best days
• Saturday is the worst day
• Holidays are slow traffic days (except commerce sites)
• 10 am – 11:30 am and 1 – 3:30 pm are great times to post
• Stagger posts based on time zones

A recent study by Virtue specific to Facebook also shows that Social Media may follow similar patterns to the rest of the traditional Web.

• The three biggest usage spikes tend to occur on weekdays at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET.
• The biggest spike occurs at 3:00 p.m. ET on weekdays.
• Weekday usage is pretty steady, however Wednesday at 3:00 pm ET is consistently the busiest period.

Fans are less active on Sunday compared to all other days of the week; most sites slowest traffic day is Saturday, followed by Sunday. This is interesting since so many schools and companies block Facebook from 9 – 5 pm.  Tough to block mobile devices though.

There are exceptions to the above rules, depending on what you are posting, but these are good general guides for most sites, social media activity and blogs. Erik has been fortunate to have access to statistics to hundreds of different sites/blogs during my sixteen year career and roughly 90% of the time the above holds true.
When he was the Head of Marketing at Travelzoo his production team always sent out the Top 20 e-mail list to the 21 million subscribers on Wednesday at roughly 11 am.  Why?  This gave it the best chance to be read.  If you have an incredible Tweet you need to get out, but it’s 2 a.m. on a Saturday, use a tool like hootsuite to schedule for the tweet to go out when more potential readers might read it.
Ironically, this post may not be picked up as much as it could since I’m posting it in the afternoon on a Monday following a holiday.
Ric suggests these as other good posts on this topic: YouTube Traffic Patters, Best Time to Send E-Mail, When are Facebook Users Most Active?, Conversion Volume by Day

BBC enlists commercial sector help to shake up radio

Amanda Andrews has written a piece in The Telegraph and also reported by Radio Today that former GMG Radio boss, John Myers, has been asked to carry out a wide-ranging efficiency review.

Mr Myers has been tasked with reviewing the operations at core BBC stations including Radio 1, Radio 2, 6 Music and 1Xtra. The review could lead to a major shake-up of the way BBC Radio operates and is one attempt at ending constant accusations of a "bloated" BBC. In recent years, the commercial sector has heavily criticised the BBC for spending more than is necessary to operate a radio business.

The BBC Trust wants the core radio stations to deliver value for money to the licence fee payer, while operating as efficiently as possible. Mr Myers will spend the first three months of 2011 undertaking the review. As a result of his commitments at the BBC, he will not begin his new role as chief executive of the Radio Academy until April. "I can confirm that as part of our ongoing drive to ensure value for money we have asked independent consultant John Myers to help us in reviewing the efficiency of our radio operations. He will be working with us between January and March 2011," said a BBC spokeswoman A source familiar with the situation said that the BBC wanted to hire someone primarily with commercial sector expertise, but needed to ensure that person was not a "BBC hater". 

It is an interesting development am I not sure what I make of it. He is only reviewing the stations that compete with the commercial sector  but arguably that is all he is qualified to advise on. But when you look at the budgets will it make any real difference.

Radio 1
10.8 million weekly listeners, budget £43m, cost per user per hour 0.6p

Radio 2
13.3 million weekly listeners, budget £50.7m, cost per user per hour 0.5p

Radio 3
2 million weekly listeners, budget £51.1m, cost per user per hour 6.3p

Radio 4
9.7 million weekly listeners, budget £108.6m, cost per user per hour 1.3p

Radio 5 Live
6 million weekly listeners, budget £72.2million, cost per user per hour 2.3p

6 Music
0.7 million weekly listeners, budget £9m, cost per user per hour 3.4p

Radio 5 Live Sports Extra
0.7 million weekly listeners, budget £3.7m, cost per user per hour 2.6p

Radio 7
0.9 million weekly listeners, budget £6.9m, cost per user per hour 2p

Asian Network
0.4 million weekly listeners, budget £12.1m, cost per user per hour 6.9p

Radio 1Xtra
0.6 million weekly listeners, budget £9.6m, cost per user per hour 4.5p

The channels he is going to look at total £12.3m which is only just above the Radio 4 budget and the cost per listener for Radios 1 & 2 is already small so it makes me think this process is just to pacify the commercial sector.

More examples of my work

I have been busy on a number of dramas and documentaries most of which I cannot talk about yet but will be on air around and just after Christmas so will share more when they go public. However one that I am just finishing is a 2 part documentary on Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino boxer, and now politician. An exclusive interview produced by Lyndon Saunders at All Out Productions which I have been involved in editing and mixing will be going out on the World Service on Nov 26th and Dec 3rd as the Friday Documentary.

Fighting for the people

Making the leap from top level sport to politics is not unique: Pakistan’s Imran Kahn did it; Britain’s Sebastian Coe’s done it… but Filipino, Manny Pacquiao, takes things to a new level. As an active boxer – and the world’s first fighter to win eight world titles in no less than eight different weight divisions – earlier this year he was also elected to Congress in the Philippines earlier this year.
Now, Mike Costello, the BBC’s Boxing Correspondent travels to the Philippines to spend time with this sporting legend as he trains for his forthcoming fight with Antonio Margarito. Mike discovers who Pacquiao is as the boxer, the newly appointed politician and man of the Filipino people.
Speaking with people that know, love and work with Pacquiao, his story of poverty to one of the world’s most high earning sportsmen is compelling. Mike Costello will visit the streets in General Santos where Pacquiao grew up to see for himself where he came from.

TX times...

East Africa
Friday 07:00, 14:00, 21:00
West Africa
Friday 09:00. 14:00, 21:00
America
Friday 14:00, 19:00
East Asia
Friday 03:00, 08:00, 13:00
South Asia
Friday 04:00, 09:00, 15:00
Europe & Middle East
Friday 10:00, 15:00, 20:00
Australia
Thursday 23:00, Friday 04:00, 11:00, 16:00
UK
Friday 09:00, 12:00, 15:00

C4 unveils £5m gaming push aimed at 10 to 19 year olds

Channel 4 is to plough around £5m into a raft of games and apps that will encourage youngsters to consider finance, ethics, attraction and death. The 10 multiplatform projects have been commissioned by Channel 4 Education.
The services span a range of platforms, including console gaming, online games and mobile apps as C4 Education bids to reach youngsters in all digital places they consume content. 

As part of the range of commissions, C4 has earmarked three specifically for 10-to 14-year-olds following its extended remit to cater for this target demographic.   The orders follow C4’s decision to ring-fence its 2010 investment in education of £4m, along with an additional £1m injection specifically for 10-14s for 2011.
Alice Taylor, C4 commissioning editor for education, said the aim was to provide engaging content for the target demographic of 10-19s. “Covering a fantastic range of formats and platforms, the projects are varied and fun whilst still tackling useful and important subject matters,” said Taylor. “As usual we aim to represent teens – and now tweens – in their best light, and to continue to find new talent and recruit UK independents in the drive to provide public service content of the very highest quality.”
Speaking about Channel 4 Education's general remit, Taylor said it is "committed to the public service remit of reaching teenagers and young people with content relevant to their tastes and as such the budget is ring fenced". Taylor defended the public service remit of her department and its shift away from traditional term-time morning slots, which reached 70,000-80,000 viewers, to more experimental games and projects on the web and on mobile. The annual education budget of £4m for 14- to 19-year-olds is to be supplemented with £1m for 10- to 14-year-olds as a result of the government's Digital Economy Act earlier this year.
She said the department was "not only allowed to but expected to fail in some areas". "That's the merit, the point of public service to try something not that's not commercially proven or that doesn't exist yet," added Taylor.
"Luckily we're having a lot of success with our stuff but without public service you would only do what is commercially viable. We want experimentation, diversity innovation and something for the public benefit, to make products that are about helping somebody or making them feel better."
Taylor said that in the two years since Channel 4 changed its education strategy there is "no doubt" that it reaches a more suitable audience, but added that reaching that audience online presents different problems. "It's a challenge to get things noticed – publishing things on the internet is like chucking them into the sea, rather than a river."

Is Cameron showing his true colours about the BBC?

In an editorial in today's Observer they say....

David Cameron enjoys joshing with journalists. He also, in a previous, non-political life, worked as a media public relations expert, lobbying against, among others, the BBC. So when he tells a Brussels press conference that we're all in the cuts and freeze business together, "including – deliciously – the BBC", it's probably best to leave high horses in the stable. You can make too much of a deliciously duff joke. But you also see why our prime minister needs to be very, very careful. Is he in hock to Rupert Murdoch? Labour MPs, anxious to see more of his Number 10 visiting book, want fuller disclosure here. The two main Murdochs, father and son, have been heavy-footed and loose-tongued in their lobbying against the corporation...... more

The cuts rushed through in 48 hours are not inconsequential and will have an impact on what the BBC can do. However the integration of the newsroom in 2012 will make the world wide new gathering much more effective and will certainly help the 'One BBC' including the World Service but in this digital age where less and less people will consume public service broadcasting using a TV receiver in the corner of the front room, we really do need to find a new funding model to guarantee a viable public service broadcaster for the long time. Please do not let folk chip and slice away at the BBC so that all we are left with is the Murdoch empire.

Who is going beyond the Murdoch paywall 3 months in

I posted about this at the start back in July here and here. Now Peter Preston has written in today's Observer an article about numbers and types of people venturing behind The Times paywall in the first 3 months.

Fleet Street is gagging to discover whether Mr M has shot himself in the foot. Interim answer, from the heavyweight Nielsen company: foot still attached to leg. They reckon that total unique monthly UK visitors to the Times site went down from 3,096,000 to 1,782,000 when the wall went up, and that only 362,000 – about 20% – ventured on to pages beyond the wall. You can weave webs of relative triumph or disaster from all this. The good news for News International is that those who vaulted the wall were a bit older, richer and more dedicated to scanning the site carefully. They are the "engaged readers" advertisers admire – as opposed to the click-by-night trade who never stop to buy anything. The bad news is that a few hundred thousand unique visitors sounds pretty puny compared with the 20 million or so the Times was claiming before the wall went up. If you want a guess in the fog, 362,000 "engaged" UK readers was broadly what the Mail (a believer in a web without walls) found a year or so ago when it took a 30m unique visitor monthly total and whittled away overseas callers and click-by-nighters. By those lights, the Times's great wall isn't a flop, nor yet a necessarily a glowing path to future riches. But there's something worthwhile left to work with, so start counting the ads.

Back in July I compared the two models, the paywall from The Times and the traffic driven site from The Mail. Well 3 months on into the Murdoch paywall and it seems that both models are producing about the same number of engaged users.

Labour calls for inquiry into BBC licence fee deal

James Robinson writes in The Guardian...

The shadow culture secretary, Ivan Lewis, has demanded an urgent parliamentary inquiry into the BBC licence fee settlement following the hastily negotiated deal agreed with the government last week. Lewis has written to John Whittingdale, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, asking him to hold an investigation into the six-year deal.

Lewis said the agreement "rode roughshod over the independence of the BBC, crushed any serious prospect of reform and involved no consultation with licence fee payers or parliamentarians". "The BBC is one of this country's great institutions and its future a matter of public interest," Lewis added.

Although Ivan Lewis is my own MP and a good local MP I have to say I am not confident he will get very far.

Socialnomics publish Top 10 brands on Facebook

Lauren Pelkey writes on the Socialnomics blog....

It appears Facebookers love their sweets and caffeinated beverages. Five of the top ten brands on Facebook are Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Oreo, Skittles and Red Bull. That means 50% of the top ten brands on Facebook are food and beverage. The other half include Facebook itself at number one, YouTube at number three, Victoria’s Secret at number eight, Disney at number nine, and iTunes at number ten.

For more you can read the full post on the Socialnomics blog.

BBC cuts in licence fee deal 'brutal but realistic', say corporation executives

John Plunkett and Maggie Brown have covered the BBC response in an article in The Guardian.

Senior BBC executives admitted today that staff would be stunned and baffled by the scale of the cuts in the licence fee settlement, which they described as "clearly very challenging". Peter Salmon, the director of BBC North, said it was "tough, but it is tough all round". "These are pretty difficult times. This is an exceptional settlement and it's going to be difficult for the BBC but it's difficult for everyone in the whole UK economy," he added.  "On the positive side the stuff that we are taking on board are a collection of related responsibilities, a lot of which make sense given what the BBC does and what the BBC cares about – programme-making, content-making, news," said Salmon. "The most important thing for the BBC is the fact that it maintains the BBC's independence. We are very keen on multi-year settlements, on having the kind of financial security we need over a period of time so that we can plan, and also stay at arm's length from the government and government politics. It's really important to us, it's important to licence payers, it's what's kept the BBC brave and independent all these years. It's a tough day. The staff are going to be stunned and probably quite baffled by the news. You get a sense on lots of fronts you are not immune from all the big and difficult things happening in the world. The pension gap was another difficult part of the story. These are tough times."

The BBC Radio 5 Live controller, Adrian van Klaveren, also speaking in Salford today, said the corporation had been surprised at the speed of the licence fee settlement and described the cuts as "clearly very challenging". But Van Klaveren added that there was a positive side to the deal, which guarantees the future of the licence fee for the next six years. "Clearly these numbers are very challenging and will need a lot of work," There's a process that is going to take time. It's complicated and there are a lot of options. Changes need to be made over a period of years. I think all of us have been surprised at the pace of things over the last week. Numbers have moved around and each number clearly has different consequences. It will be felt more and more as years go by. We are not talking about something that has to be achieved by April 2011. There is time to work it through sensibly."

 Go to the Guardian web site to read the rest of the story.

Union describes the BBC cuts as "appalling"

BECTU have said...


BBC staff will be left reeling at the announcement that senior management have accepted a freeze in the licence fee until 2017 at the same time as agreeing to fund BBC World Service and Welsh language channel, S4C, from these reduced resources, says BECTU. The changes, apparently agreed just today, are said to amount to a 16 per cent cut in the BBC's income, equivalent to some £550m. Only yesterday (18 October) there was speculation that the BBC was to be instructed by government to fund free licences for the over-75s. Commenting on today's announcement, BECTU general secretary, Gerry Morrissey said:

"BBC staff will be in a state of shock at the scale of today's announcements. We'll be seeking an urgent meeting with senior management to discuss the implications of this appalling news. From where we are standing, senior executives appear to have entered into negotiations on the hoof and the result will be largescale damage to the BBC's services with the Corporation taking the flak for badly judged government decisions."

Morrissey also told the Press Association: “It seems as if the BBC is now doing the government’s dirty work. They have thrown in the towel, so they will now have to justify the cuts to staff. How can you cut 16% off your costs without affecting jobs or services? Morale at the BBC is already at rock bottom, but now there is little or no confidence in the management.”

Bectu has also comdemned the decision to include responsibility for Welsh broadcaster S4C into the BBC's pot, saying it shows an “ignorance of Wales, and its people, and most importantly, of the importance of democracy and plurality in Wales”. Bectu national official, David Donovan, said: “[Culture minister Jeremy Hunt’s] statements and actions serve as a clear warning that Wales is set to be controlled once more by a political elite with no interest in its people, its culture or its language. At a fundamental level, the statements show scant regard for the democratic process. It is clear that everyone who is committed to public service broadcasting and to the language and culture of Wales has to prepare to defend these interests against this government’s actions.”

UK drops down the world rankings in new broadband league table

The survey of 72 countries analysed by the Oxford Said Business School and the University of Oviedo from 40 million Speedtest.net tests ranked the UK joint 18th in broadband performance in 2010, one place down on 2009, and three behind its 2008 rank.  Download speeds show reasonable improvement, rising to an average of 6.4Mbit/s, and latency is now also a respectable 51ms, but upload improvements appear to have barely shifted at all, rising from 368kbit/s in 2008 to 2010's 596kbit/s. Although upload speeds are less important to subscribers today, tomorrow's applications such as consumer telepresence require, by Cisco's own admission, at least 3.5Mbits/s upload throughput to work correctly. At the current rate of improvement, it could be years before this is viable on current trends.

• Third annual study from Saïd Business School, Oxford University, looks at broadband quality in 72 countries and 239 cities
• 14 countries (1 in 5) already prepared for the Internet "applications of tomorrow", compared to only 1 country in 2008
• 38 countries, 53% of the total, have conquered the digital quality divide, with less evident differences between the broadband quality inside and outside their main cities, an improvement of 58% in just one year
• Study reaffirms positive link between broadband leadership and innovation economies
• Many emerging economies are 'leapfrogging' by focusing on bringing the best broadband to their cities, acknowledging their impact on the economy
• 38 cities already have the broadband quality required for the applications of tomorrow, ready to support smart and connected communities
• Mobile broadband quality has improved significantly, with 10% of mobile broadband users already enjoying similar quality experiences compared to those with fixed-line broadband
• Broadband consumption patterns are diverging, from a basic household requiring over 2 Mbps and consuming about 20 GB per month, to a smart and connected home commanding over 20 Mbps and a consumption of 500 GB per month

There is an interactive section to the Cisco report pages that enables you to look in more detail at the data for each country surveyed.

As someone who uploads work in progress and finished products the lack of upload speed is a constant niggle now.

BBC Licence fee funding announced for the next 6 years

Wow! Earlier I blogged about the BBC offering to fund the World Service. Well they have really rolled over now agreeing to have the licence fee frozen at £145.50, pay £272m for the World Service , S4C's £102m for S4C, and pay £25m for BBC Monitoring. They really didn't want to take on the £556m a year funding of free TV licences for the over-75s. Mark Sweney and Tara Conlan have written about the deal at the Media Guardian site...

The BBC licence fee is to be frozen at the current level of £145.50 for the next six years, a 16% cut in real terms, after the corporation today concluded a bruising round of funding negotiations with the coalition government.  In addition it will provide £150m a year for the rollout of superfast broadband to rural areas from 2013 and £25m a year for local TV and online content. A further one-off capital investment in local TV and online services of £25m will also come from the licence fee and the BBC will also underwrite the rollout of the digital radio network nationally.

Well another 16% cuts in the BBC budget is going to mean even less quality public service programming. This is really scary. What will the government do next.....

BBC offers to pay for World Service to avoid licence fee raid

How this is a real turn up for the books and clearly shows if nothing else that the BBC is running scared that the government will start to eat away at its funding.

Dan Sabbagh has written about this in The Guardian.....

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, is prepared to meet some or all of the £300m annual costs of running the World Service, in a last-ditch attempt to prevent a £556m raid on its finances to fund the cost of free TV licences for the over-75s, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal. Embroiled in crisis talks over BBC financing in the hours before the government's comprehensive spending review is agreed, the corporation's negotiators have been told that ministers are also considering whether to force the BBC to meet the costs of the World Service, which is currently paid for by the Foreign Office. That would be an alternative to making the BBC pay out £556m to fund the costs of free television licences for anywhere home to an elderly person – a bill that may force existing television and radio budgets to be slashed.

To read the rest of this article go to the Media Guardian web site.

Multi-Station Radioplayer to launch in December

The Multi-station platform Radioplayer is to be rolled out from December, launching with 50 stations, the chairman of the project has announced. Speaking at the Radio Festival in Salford, Andrew Harrison – chief executive of RadioCentre – revealed the “full consumer launch” of the online service would take place in February, with at least 200 stations including all BBC channels and Ofcom-regulated networks.

Michael Hill, Radioplayer’s managing director, demonstrated a test set for delegates.  He described it as “a defining moment for UK radio”, adding: “We hope all broadcast stations, of all sizes and types, will participate.”

Listen to Michael Hill talk about it to Mark Rock CEO of AudioBoo on AudioBoo...



Tim Davie, director of BBC Audio and Music, added: “It is a result of genuine collaboration across the industry and is the sort of innovation we need to make digital radio a reality.”

Socialnomics refresh their excellent Social Media Revolution video

Social Media Revolution 2 is a refresh of the original video with new and updated social media & mobile statistics that are hard to ignore and is based on the book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman.

It’s amazing how fast the world of social media moves!  As many of the statistics from the original Social Media video have changed, I took a moment to refresh the video with a few new statistics and graphics.  Thanks to all of you for your support in making the first Social Media Revolution and Social Media ROI videos such a huge success and I hope that you enjoy this refresh!
Stats from Video (sources listed below by corresponding #)

1. Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30-years-old
2. 96% of them have joined a social network
3. Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
4. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
5. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
6. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…
7. Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year
8. iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
9. We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it.”
10. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest ahead of the United States and only behind China and India
11. Yet, QQ and Renren dominate China
12. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
13. 80% of companies use social media for recruitment; % of these using LinkedIn 95%
14. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
15. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the  populations of Ireland, Norway, or Panama.  Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
16. 50% of the mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
17. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé – some universities have stopped distributing e-mail accounts
18. Instead they are distributing: eReaders + iPads + Tablets
19. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
20. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
21. While you watch this 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube
22. Wikipedia has over 15 million articles…studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
23. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
24. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
25. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $1,712.32 per hour
26. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
27. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
28. Do you like what they are saying about your brand? You better.
29. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
30. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
31. Only 14% trust advertisements
32. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
33. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
34. Kindle eBooks Outsold Paper Books on Christmas
35. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation
36. 60 millions status updates happen on Facebook daily
37. We no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
38. We will non longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media
39. Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate
40. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men Listening first, selling second
41. The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years
42. Bonus: comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network

BBC reveals Salford timetable according to The Guardian

Tara Conlan has written an article outlining the timetable for BBC departments to move to Media City.

Three relocation "waves" have been devised as part of the BBC's "migration plan", details of which have been seen by MediaGuardian.co.uk, to move around 2,300 jobs to Salford, starting in May next year.

"Wave 1" runs between May and July 2011 and those due to move then include BBC2 hit Dragons' Den, Question of Sport, many CBeebies and CBBC staff, marketing and finance employees in children's and sport, Learning production management and staff in comedy and drama who are already based in Manchester.


Those who will relocate from London to Salford in "wave 2" between August and October 2011 including Newsgathering London and Leeds, some Radio 5 Live management and commissioning staff, most of the BBC Academy, children's show Newsround, CBBC drama and acquisitions, and the Mobile Apps team.

Among the "wave 3" departments set to move in November and December 2011 or in 2012 are the remainder of Radio 5 Live management and commissioning, future, media and technology homepage staff, digital distribution operation North and BBC Breakfast, which the migration plans says is "likely Easter 2012".

For the details then you can find the article here at The Guardian web site.

Interns could claim unpaid wages

According to the How Do web site an Employment Tribunal ruling means that unpaid interns could now be entitled to claim back the national minimum wage, even if they originally agreed to work for nothing.

The National Union of Journalists is also calling on fellow unions and organisations opposed to free internships to join its campaign to end them.
“We will play our part in the campaign to bring exploitative employers to book, using minimum wage legislation and other legal means, to steadily change internship culture from one of exploitation to one of genuine learning opportunities,” said NUJ general secretary, Jeremy Dear.
The crucial case came in November last year, when the Reading Employment Tribunal ruled in favour of an intern who worked for a production company in London. Despite agreeing only to receive expenses, she later decided to seek payment after the internship ended. The tribunal recognised that a worker is entitled to the National Minimum Wage - whether or not they have agreed to work for nothing.
It potentially opens the door to anyone who has worked as an unpaid intern, to recover up to £232 per 40-hour week.
Interns could claim unpaid wages “This practice continues to exploit dreams and exclude new talent, undermining the diversity of our profession, just when we should be nurturing and supporting the people coming into the industry,” continued Dear.
To recover the minimum wage through an Employment Tribunal, you would have to make the claim no later than 3 months after a payment would have been due.
Should you fall beyond this, yet within 6 years of finishing the internship, you can apply through the county courts.
This ruling does not apply to students on work experience placements.

Is Media Studies at University a good idea?

This is a question I am regularly asked and my answer is "don't!".

Let me explain, in my opinion most media degrees are all about theory and don't actually prepare you for a career in the media. I have some evidence to back this claim up. Firstly, I have delivered and then improved the technical units of a City & Guilds Media Induction course which is described as.....

"This qualification is for new entrants to audio visual industries, both freelance and employed, or those who are looking for their first role in the field. You don't need any previous experience and you don't need to be working already. "

We delivered this 9 times in a year and for at least the first 6 or 7 most of the students were media graduates who routinely told me that "they had learnt more about the media industry in 10 days than there entire 3 year degree course".

Secondly, I am the NVQ assessor for the Advanced Media Apprenticeship scheme that has been piloted here in Manchester as is now in its 4th year. It is now being rolled out nationally. It was the industry itself that have driven this programme forward because they haven't been getting enough new entrants into the industry with the correct knowledge and experience.

These apprentices get practical and relevant knowledge based study at college as well as real work based placements in a wide range of industry placements for up to 12 weeks at a time where they undertake real jobs and so get experience, and build up a reputation in the industry.

The apprentices go on and get real jobs in our industry because they have a proven track record and an qualification respected by the industry because they have been involved in forming and developing it. That said I think there are a few careers paths where a degree is still useful like Journalism for example. But remember most people get work in this industry by being able to prove then can do the job and being known by key people.

Here is a video completed from star to finish by a team of the apprentices...

Integrated household survey reveals how religious your area is

Simon Rogers in The Guardian has just published a report from the Office for National Statistics

With typical timing, the report has come out the week after the Pope's visit to the UK. But nevertheless, it's an enormous survey: some 450,000 respondents asked questions about their beliefs, sexual identity and health. Besides the findings which show that 1.5% of the population is gay, it includes lots of other details:

• 71% their religion is Christianity
• 4% say their religion is Muslim
• 21% have no religious affiliation
• Slough has the highest level of religious belief in England - 93% - whilst Brighton and Hove has the lowest at 58%
• Inverclyde has the highest level of religious affiliation in Scotland at 92%
• Flintshire has the highest level of religious affiliation in Wales at 81%

It also provides an interesting breakdown of ethnicity and health. Are there any links between any of the datasets - between good health and religious belief, or high ethnicity and high religious belief? Here are some completely unscientific findings:

• 33% of Blaenau Gwent is in poor health, the highest percentage of people in the UK. Only 67% have a religious affiliation, one of the lowest rates in the country
• Slough, besides having the highest religious percentage in the country also has a very high number of people in good health - 81%

Do those two figures tell us anything meaningful?
Although the report is published as a PDF (of course), the ONS has given us the spreadsheet of results and you can download them below. What can you do with the data?

DATA: download the full spreadsheet

It was interesting that one of the early comments on The Guardian page says...

Given that the question asked by the ONS was "What is your religion, even if you are not currently practising?", it's not really possible to work out how religious an area is - just that loads of people still lazily tick the 'Christian' box without thinking about it. It's a shame that the ONS couldn't have chosen a question that actually asked about religious belief.

I look forward to seeing what people can do with this data and whether it can be used to identify needs in a community.

Thought provoking post from Dave Perry on his Visual Theology blog

Dave wrote.....

On Thursday I got into a fascinating conversation with the chatty young stylist who was cutting my hair, my regular guy being off sick. She asked what I do and so I said that I was a Methodist Minister. As someone who never goes to church herself my answer lead her to ask a series of great questions about weddings and churchgoing. She was genuinely interested in what the experience would entail and why anyone would choose it. "Isn't it hypocritical getting married in church if you don't go?" she asked. I found myself turning the question around and saying that perhaps the reason people don't go is that we have made the experience unattractive and irrelevant to her generation. In other words it isn't their fault but ours. This unexpected lack of blame and acceptance of responsibility seemed to get good traction with her and I went on to say just a little bit about faith as love which changes the world, shifting the focus away from church going as such to a more engaged kingdom-centric view of discipleship, but without any of the jargon. 

To read the rest of what Dave had to say please go to his excellent blog.

Details of the last "What's The Point Of" now available

The BBC has now published the details of the last of the series of 4 on The Kennel Club, which I finished editing and mixing last Thursday. As promised in my previous post on this series here are the details...

It has a fine dining room and a celebrated collection of canine art. It has a charitable trust and organises the greatest dog show on earth. That doesn't stop Quentin Letts asking, "What's the point of the Kennel club?" The kennel club was founded in 1873 by twelve Victorian gentlemen who liked dogs and dinners in equal measure, and wanted to bring some discipline into the world of dog breeding and showing. It's struggling to do that today. Some breeders and showers are in open revolt against Kennel Club health regulations. Others from the welfare lobby say the Kennel club hasn't been doing enough to tackle the suffering caused to dogs by generations of inbreeding. Quentin enjoys the sunshine, spectacle and order of a dog show in Worcestershire, goes for a walk with a breathless dog suffering a range of genetic disorders, and enters the hallowed halls of the Kennel club Clarges street as he considers whether this British institution still has the teeth needed to improve the lot of dogs in this country.

There are some strange 'goings on' in the doggie world and it appears OK to show dogs with major health issues but not OK to breed from them. But how do you get the next generation of dogs to show if you don't breed from them? Tune in or use the iPlayer to hear for yourself.

This brings to a close the third series of What's The Point Of.  Rosie Dawson, the producer and I have worked on all 3 series and it never ceases to amaze me how my clients, like Rosie for WTPO and Dawn Bryan for The Choice  keep coming up with new ideas to better the previous series, much respect and thanks.

Another example of my work - "Divided Britain" on BBC Radio 4

On Friday I finished editing and mixing a continuing documentary "Divided Britain" with producer Sally Chesworth for BBC News & Current Affairs to be transmitted on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 31st August at 8pm and repeated on Sunday Sept 6th at 5pm or find it here on the iPlayer.

In 2006, Radio 4 was given access to a ground breaking education scheme in East Lancashire which aimed to improve GCSE results and break down divisions in an area where white and Asian families live separate, parallel lives.  Following the disturbances in Burnley in the summer of 2001, schools were identified as having a crucial role in promoting community cohesion. Lancashire County Council was given the go ahead to close 11 schools and reopen them as 8 new community colleges each with the aim of being a hub for the neighbourhood, where Asian and white families would come together and get to know each other. The last of those £25 million buildings are due to open in September.
Marsden Heights Community College in Nelson moved into its new facilities after Easter. Head teacher Mike Tull is excited by the opportunities that the building brings and hopes it will help engage parents in the area. But what are the challenges he faces in breaking down cultural barriers in the former mill towns of Brierfield and Nelson?  Since the scheme began his school has gone from being 60% Asian students to nearly 80% and he says many white parents choose other schools for their children because of prejudice not standards of education. Locals already describe Marsden Heights as "the Asian school". And now a charity is looking to open an Islamic girls school nearby which many say threatens to further segregate young people. Can these new "superschools" make a difference or are racial divisions becoming more entrenched?

Some interesting quotes from the programme, one teacher saying "she grew up in a council house with no phone and no car". In one generation a mobile phone is now considered a necessity, not a luxury. Also the stories of bullying are horrific.  This is well worth a listen.

Details of the 4th programme of The Choice on BBC Radio 4 now available

As promised in my previous post here are the details of the 4th programme of the current series of The Choice on BBC Radio 4...

On The Choice this week Michael Buerk talks to Frank Evans, a butchers boy from Salford who dreamt of becoming a bullfighter after a holiday in Spain. The decision to become a matador meant he had to fight his way into the most dangerous and controversial sports in the world. It brought him ridicule and condemnation along with injuries in the ring and death threats out of it. But it was a choice he kept making despite a fearful wife and family and eventually despite ailing health.

A very interesting story about a guy determined to follow his dream.

Independent radio producers say BBC Trust has not gone far enough

John Plunkett in The Guardian has reported the initial responses from the radio independent producers to the publication of the report into the BBC's treatment and quotas for indies in the radio sector.

Independent radio producers have criticised the BBC Trust's review of BBC radio commissioning, saying it was "short-sighted, complacent and contradictory". While giving a cautious welcome to the tone of the trust's report yesterday and its decision to extend the amount of BBC programming available to independent producers with a 10% window of creative competition, the Radio Independents Group said it was "very disappointed" by the scale of the change. The group had asked for a 25% minimum independent quota and a 25% window of creative competition. The trust said the minimum independent quota should remain at 10%.

The Radio Independents Group's (RIG) statement continues...

We welcome the introduction of a WOCC (Window Of Creative Competition) of 10% across all networks and are confident that, provided the appropriate commissioning structures are in place and monitored effectively, RIG members will compete effectively and win the majority of open tenders.
We are however very disappointed by the scale of change. We had proposed an increase in the quota (currently around 8.4% in real terms) to a statutory 25% and the introduction of a 25% WOCC. This would have been consistent with TV commissioning which works well for the benefit of license fee payers. The trust states that radio audiences register high levels of appreciation and increasing the indie quota risks adversely affecting this. We believe this is short sighted, complacent and contradictory to some of the trust's own recent network reviews. We believe that maintaining the status quo offers a greater risk. Any organisation wishing to equip itself for future challenges would seek to move forward, rather than protect it's current position – the licence fee payer would expect no less.

I am completely with RIG on this. It is OK for TV to have a 25% quota and a further 25% WoCC but The Trust saying

a reduction in the BBC's in-house operations to a guaranteed minimum of 50% of output "would cause great instability"

is crazy. Why will it cause instability for the radio sector and not the TV sector. Surely the issues were very similar when these quotas were introduced into the TV sector, and it is still here!  Also it wouldn't be a guaranteed minimum of 50% of output, the guarantee is only for 25% with the opportunity to pitch for up to another 25% but that is by no means guaranteed.

"We believe that maintaining the status quo offers a greater risk. Any organisation wishing to equip itself for future challenges would seek to move forward, rather than protect it's current position – the licence fee payer would expect no less."

Absolutely if the independent sector isn't given the oportunity to grow it will never get out of the 'cottage industry' status that it is currently. It is very hard to make a viable business out of independent radio programme making. The BBC is the only client in town and David Liddiment, chair of the trust's audiences and performance committee, said

the BBC's radio services were both popular and distinctive [and] make a vital contribution to the public purposes. However, this review has shown that the BBC's approach to commissioning from the sector does not always work as well as it should. Putting more of the programmes up for grabs will help promote competition for the best ideas, wherever they come from. That will be good for licence-fee payers, whose interests the trust is here to serve. And we are particularly keen to see a much more open and fair approach to commissioning from the independent sector."

If you want to increase the diversity and make it open and fair you need a large pool of smaller independent producers. In order to have a sustainable business they need a reasonable number of commissions to get some form of economy of scale. This level of quotas won't do it.