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Steve Bowbrick
Steve Bowbrick
@bowbrick@bowblog.com
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  • Mark Thompson at The Oxford Media Convention

    Mark Thompson is Chief Exective of Channel 4. His speech at the Convention was outstanding. His principle point was that the old, Reithian language of public service means little to contemporary audiences and that a new language is now required – one that acknowledges the ‘second order’ benefits of public service ‘merit goods’. These second…

  • Ed Richards at the Oxford Media Convention

    Ed Richards is The Prime Minister’s priniciple adviser on media matters. He’s a famously shadowy figure (he actually tried to dodge out of the frame as I took his picture!). His presentation was a fairly robust defense of the Government’s record on new services and particularly its attitude to applications from the BBC. Critics accuse…

  • Lord David Currie at the Oxford Media Convention

    Lord Currie is the first Chair of Ofcom. He’s building his rag-tag team (rumoured to be at least 600 strong) and setting terms of reference now in readiness for the green light once the Communications Bill hits the statute books. Perhaps understandably he remained resolutely vague about the direction and tone of the super-regulator and…

  • Paddy Barwise at The Oxford Media Convention

    Paddy Barwise heads the London Business School’s Future Media programme and is a perennial commentator on broadcast regulation issues – particularly ownership and quality. He’s usually defending quality thresholds or opposing foreign ownership. He wasn’t speaking at the event but he told me, intriguingly, that beyond the Communications Bill lurks greater peril for British public…

  • Andrew Graham at The Oxford Media Convention

    Andrew Graham is an economist and Master of Balliol College. His trenchant and entertaining views on media regulation are well known. He famously said that “if you could measure quality it would just be quantity”. One of his observations in Oxford was that the effect of the Communications Bill and Ofcom’s arrival is that broadcasting…

  • Pants on Fire

    Simon Hoggart is a treasure and if he ever actually leaves The Guardian the paper will turn to dust immediately. Today’s sketch on Blair’s performance in The Commons yesterday is brilliant. My guess is that Alastair Campbell has had a silicone chip installed in Mr Blair’s Y-fronts. In his Downing Street office Mr Campbell has…

  • More Hammersley action

    I’m pretty sure that if I ever actually meet Ben Hammersley he’ll be a kind of wild-haired, pop-eyed genius type with a pencil behind each ear and a short attention span. Whatever he looks like (and the photo on his web site is inconclusive – although the pipe should be a clue), he’s obviously a…

  • Blockbuster blogged

    Listen, I don’t know much about Cory Doctorow and I haven’t read his book (although I have downloaded it for nothing) but I know for certain that Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is going to be a bestseller. There’s something going on with this book, a murmur in the blogosphere. It could easily…

  • New Scientist on 2003

    New Scientist’s twelve expected scientific milestones for 2003. The list is behind a log-in but you can get a free trial and, if you subscribe to the print edition, the archive is free.

  • A convention… How grand…

    I’m off to the Oxford Media Convention tomorrow. The theme of the event is ‘Public Service Communications’. If my luvvie credentials were up to date I could probably tell you what the real purpose of the event is. Media types are the ultimate control freaks and would never dream of convening in such a high…