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A view on the world - (or bits of it that interest me at least)
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Was there a golden age of TV news?
Wednesday evening and I went to the former LWT building on London's South Bank to learn about how Sky News covered the Afghan elections - those explaining' in a somewhat Dead Donkey Stylee were Tim Marshall apparently the Sky News Foreign Affairs Editor and someone called Bevan Gibson who labours under the fantastic title of Head of Future Technology- Sky News.
Seems that their coverage relies on the Inmarsat BGANS and store and forward type arrangements.
Inmarsat BGAN is a neat little uplink about the size of a laptop PC that permits Satellite access from practically anywhere on the globe which just about copes with a 'moving head' live TV feed and can be used to trickle full bandwidth video over a link.
Personally I think 24 hour news has provided little benefit to the viewer and thought the questioning of the value of 'live' spots from Downing street and the like showed how little respect is given to the audience.
Sky News will be HD by the time of the next UK election - think this will favour Cameron and Clegg over the dour Scotsman.
This is significant - almost Google for TV
Now I've been away from some time but this particular story caught my eye.
Lots of hot air has been generated by UGC and more lately 3D - this sort of targetting could be the saviour of commercial TV (or not).
Interesting that Sky are the ones running with it.
Adverts that are relevant have been touted for some time and it seems that the UK will be geting them from 2011
Here's the story
English Pop Troubadour - 30 years on
Identified by many pop commentators as writer of one of the best singles of all time (Waterloo Sunset) it was a privilege to see Ray Davies perform against the beautiful backdrop of Kenwood.
It's something over 30 years since I'd seen the Kinks perform and the years melted away as Ray re-visited many of his great hits on a soggy Saturday evening (as opposed to a Lazy Sunny Afternoon) particularly poignant is the song Celluloid heroes.
My other connection with Ray is that I nearly went to the Hornsey Art College (now part of the Middlesex University) to Study Video Documentary. So many of the 60's & 70's pop heroes studied art - perhaps this is part of the tension they experience in being pop stars forced to perform old works as opposed to creating new ones?
A Digital Britian on 50p a month?
So the Digital Britain report is out and as to be expected it's trying to be all things to all men - and fails to be anything to anyone. Lord Carter will now move to a lucrative new job.
It brings public intervention to places where there should not be public intervention and yet messes with the PSB model we have .
It is a bad example of dealing with market failure.
How can anyone think that a 50p a month tax is bold or innovative or really going to change anything.
(I'm not the only person to think that the report is rubbish either).
The good news is that little in it will be actioned as the present government is only g oing to be in power for a few months and it does mean that we're at least thinking about the issues.
On Wednesday I saw an interesting two headed presentation on the subject - the first was a quick revision on what Digital was; the meat of the RTS London event though was a presentation by Stephen Brigden of Cisco: (here's his blog)
To note some of the big questions and stand out lines:
*BBC's iPlayer has disproved the idea that only short form video will survive in the internet.
* It's unlikely that BTs Vision walled garden offering will destroy ' over the top video' (which iplayer is an example of as are is Youtube and 4OD).
*The killer app that the ISPs were looking for is Video the problem is that it's killing the networks  and the idea of a flat fee access is looking unsustainable. iPlayer is the cause of over 7% of the UK network traffic. can this live within the concept of 'net neutrality'?
*Stated service levels have little connection with reality as contention rates are seen to be bogus.
*Video over the web is not just a leisure activity - high volumes of traffic from big news stories, sport and the live budget coverage has proved this.
So as you can imagine Cisco see the solution being a better network with more of their devices and of course the NGA networks.
The failures of OFCOM? (and others)
Now I've had an interest in the subject of participation TV for some time and I noticed at the weekend that a story was running in the Mail on Sunday regarding the 'whistleblower' Bob Winsor, Bob has been seemingly tireless in his attempts to get to the bottom of unfair practices around ITV Play and others.
Bob was kind enough to send me e-mails covering his latest go at the' cover up' here is the contents: (be interesting to see who gets the new top jobs at ITV)
Subject: finally re public trust Dear all implicated in parliamentary/Government malpractice,
I would just like to add how far Ofcom and the Government will go to cover-up this (besides sending police on a hoax suicide call, falsifying consumer complaint records and obstructing the fraud squad).
Channel 4 News and ITV evening news wanted to interview me at the height of the scandal but whenever I tried to return their calls Kate Mayne at ITN Legal ordered ITN telephonists watch for calls and to ask me the nature of my story. When I did call I was then told that no news teams wanted to know my story and that they were not interested. Channel 4 News were furious at this attempt by ITN Legal to censor the news.
Similarly, when I was interviewed by Jon Snow Kate Mayne then manipulate a police statement and gave it to Jon Snow to read out as BGTV's right to reply. The reply said that police had found all my allegations to be completely without foundation etc. Polce and CPS both confirm they said no such thing. Ofcom then refused to uphold my complaint about factual inaccuraces on a news programme. Victims then contacted Ofcom and BGTV (this is why the complaints are 49+) but were told by both Ofcom and BGTV that police had found all allegations to be without foundation and so no refunds would be given to victims. To drive this message home Ofcom's Tim Suter then went on Panorama and encouraged consumers to keep on playing (being scammed) by the quizzes.
To cap it all Michael Grade prevented me from giving evidence to deloitte's but when i did eventually manage give evidence to Deloitte's (with two ITV lawyers present) all my evidence was censored from the report and Michael Grade lied to C4 News and Newsnight by stating
'nothing even verging on criminality has ever happened at ITV. This is not me saying this it is the lawyers'.
The only way all of the above could have happened and Michael Grade could be so confident is his lies is through the Establishment, the Government and Ofcom and the select committees protecting him at a huge a cost to the electorate. As for the news censorship and manipulation of a police statement such behaviour is more akin to a dictatorship.
I am very well aware that apparent justice is everything as far public trust is concerned but if MPs are serious about cleaning up parliament, then I suggest something is done about this continuing cover-up. If it comes out later then the public will know that the current clean-up was no more than a PR/damage limitation exercise.
Bob Winsor
A man of Trust ( the BBC's anyway)
About 2 years ago Sir Michael Lyons took over as the Chairman of the BBC trust the new body formed to keep a watch over the BBC on behalf of the licence payer, last week at an RTS early evening function he shared his thoughts on the BBC and the trust.
Looking a bit like Barry from Eggheads Sir Michael started his lecture with6 points which he considered as the prime commitments that the trust should be concerned with:
1) Standards - The trust should maintain the highest editorial standards and keep a political balance.
2) The BBC should serve all audiences and try to avoid a metropolitan bias. It should be concerned with all the faiths of its audiences and those of none.
3) The BBC should be a leader in terms of content providing what the market failed to deliver, its content should be distinctive- Sir Michael cited The Long March to Finchley as an example. It should continue to provide a technical lead with such innovations as the iplayer.
4) The BBC should do all it can to support UK PSB, it has no desire for a monopoly and wants to help with joint ventures - Sir Michael spoke of the possible CH4/ BBC Worldwide partnership, the work with ITV regional News and its project canvas co-operation with BT.
5) The BBC should give value for money with a rigorous stewardship of public funds and continuing improvements in its efficiency.
6) The BBC trust must ensure that the BBC remains independent and untainted by commercial influence.
Although somewhat less than charismatic Sir Micheal gave the impression of being the right man to chair the Trust.
TV 's future can benefit from looking back ..
There’s a danger for many that at the mention of the words archive and library they will suffer a near instantaneous draining of all blood from the head and a sudden feeling of sleepiness but Archive is big news in the TV world.
Roly Keating gave a great performance as the speaker at the inaugural Jane Mercer memorial lecture under the auspices of Focal International and with the support of the London section of the Royal Television Society. The lecture held at the former LWT centre earlier this week was well attended and those present had there attention held by the enthusiasm of the speaker
Although diplomatically distancing himself from a previous euphoria where it was considered realistic to release much of the BBC’s treasures as ‘creative commons’ he spoke eloquently about the long term aspirations to enable deep access to significant footage and documents held by the BBC.
Undoubtedly there are issues around the vast cornucopia of material over half a million hours of TV and a similar amount of radio plus rushes, stills and documents. The related logistics and rights clearances for such a gargantuan task is enough to raise a cold sweat in even the most able of archivists and explains why Roly was talking of a timescale of something like a decade.
Unusually for a BBC executive Roly seemed to be happy to speak with a refreshing lack of corporatist flannel and kept to a minimum the repetition of the current BBC's ‘partnership’ mantra but rest assured this is a topic that is as significant as it is immense in the future of broadcasting and multimedia authoring and it seems the BBC has the right man leading on it.
Is there really nothing on TV Tonight?
TV guides are going to be an increasingly important part of the media scene.
When you go on holiday you actually might want to record TV programmes for when you return but that is really just the tip of the iceberg…
TV listings are now so complex that we need something that is driven by our personal tastes and what we can access (by geographic limitations and what we’ve paid for) – this then needs to drive our recording/storage device- so it could go and burrow away on the Internet access BT Vision (or Itunes for example) and any other subscription services that are available. For me I’d want it to drive my Satellite receiver/positioner (for the satellites I can view and the services that are FTA) and dig ital terrestrial.
Do you want to keep a watch on certain topics on YouTube and the iplayer too?
Do the services have subtitles – is it a service that updates if programme times need to be adjusted due to late running live events?
Once programmes have been captured you then want to know what you have available for your 'a la carte' viewing.
So are we anywhere near this solution? Probably not but I think there are some projects that are addressing this
For example (let me know if you have more details)
TVTV.co.uk
Radio Times
European TV Listings
The BBC are looking for partners....
Now forgive me for being cynical but at a time when the BBC are under both the microscope and attack by its opponents is it a coincidence that it starts multiple dialogues all which have about them an element of 'open''co-operation' and 'sharing'?
Kerstin Mogull, the BBC's Future Media & Technology Chief Operating Officer (Swedish) was a late substitute for the Director of BBC Future Media and Technology Erik Huggers (Dutch) at the IET's Appleton lecture (sadly nothing to do with those All Saints sisters) and seemed in her presentation to be very keen to follow the Beeb's line on how it wants to both keep competition and plurality but is driven by a desire to share technological advances.
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