The extreme case

Labour MP and DCMS Select Committee member Derek Wyatt has laid out the case for radical reform of the BBC – cutting it back to Radio 2, Radio 4 and BBC2 and scrapping or privatising everything else. He says “it is outrageous how much the BBC spends, unchecked by its pathetic board of governors, on its internet sites.” Charter renewal really is hotting up. From Media Guardian.

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A sunny day in Soho

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It was a beautiful day in Soho. Spring is definitely in the air.

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Online in Soho

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Blogging live via T-Mobile wi-fi from Star bucks in Wardour Street (about which I am, of course, very excited). Hotfoot from lunch with a headhunter who thinks all this blogging lark is so much self-obsession. What can she possibly mean?

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Bowblog merchandise!

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I’ve always liked Cafe Press – a really simple way of creating and selling custom merchandise without actually having to do anything – so I thought I’d have a play with it and make some bowblog merch based on drawings by my son Oliver. Since there really is no good reason for you buy this stuff I’m providing an incentive to do so. If you buy something from the bowblog shop, I’ll give all the profit to UNHCR, The UN Refugee Agency. Cafe Press ship the merch from the USA so you’ll have to allow a few weeks for delivery if you don’t live there.

Massive sense of proportion failure

Is it just me or is it completely inappropriate to send a boy whose main crime seems to be a chronic case of adolescent alienation to jail for two years for the undoubtedly mischievous creation of a computer virus?

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Carter gets it

How does 15 years working his way up the greasy pole in an ad agency followed by two years in the number two spot at a collapsing cable firm prepare Stephen Carter for the hot seat at Ofcom?

Carter’s job now is to rope together 600 people from five utterly different agencies – including hundreds of Radiocommunications Agency techies and inspectors, dozens of Oftel economists and analysts and the clock-watchers and nipple counters at the Broadcasting Standards Commission.

I guess the answer to my first question is ‘it doesn’t’. Although the regulator – and the legislation that sets it up – has had a pretty smooth ride so far, you don’t need to be ‘informed opinion’ to know that Ofcom and its new Chief Executive will not have it easy for long.

Foreign bids for ITV, Sky’s expected moves on Five, a fraught merger of the ITV companies, Channel 4’s fall from grace, the broadband mess, disputed mobile phone price cuts. All this and the continuing ad recession and plunging profits. I’m not taking bets but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ofcom’s initial structure and personnel up for review within two years.

Profile of Stephen Carter in The Guardian,
The Ofcom names chief executive, BBC
Stephen Carter to head new UK media watchdog, FT
Industry insider beats rivals to the top job at media super-regulator, The Guardian

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How news is made

Matt Wells writes up last week’s Oxford Media Convention in The Guardian. He focuses on Tessa Jowell’s broad hint that Greg Dyke “can’t take the licence fee for granted” at charter renewal in 2006.

For me, this is a fascinating insight into the political management of news. If you’d attended the conference (as I did) you might easily have missed Jowell’s hint, made without fuss in the middle of a long speech, right at the end of a long day of debate containing at least half a dozen other interesting stories.

For the reporters present, though, this nugget quickly became the whole story. Presumably Jowell’s team – led by her top adviser Bill Bush who was at the conference too – briefed furiously to drive home the point that tough is the new cosy and the renewal of the Royal Charter is not a done deal. And so, almost casually, policy is made and communicated. Amazing.

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