Wednesday 29 December 2010

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.

Sunday 26 December 2010

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Friday 24 December 2010

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.

Monday 20 December 2010

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.

Thursday 16 December 2010

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?

Wednesday 15 December 2010

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.

Monday 13 December 2010

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.

Thursday 9 December 2010

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.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

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...