Recent posts in my Television Category
January 23, 2013
In “censoring” Fawlty Towers, the BBC is only following Ofcom’s lead on what viewers find unacceptable
The BBC is under fire for editing an episode of “Fawlty Towers” to remove racist language. Given the proximity of the BBC finding itself on the front pages of the tabloids for not editing a ten year old episode of the Tweenies that they had broadcast loads of times before without comment or criticism, you can see why there might have been heightened awareness of potential offence embedded in repeat showings. Especially if audience research has only recently said that this language was unacceptable when broadcast.
January 20, 2013
Will the BBC’s Tweenies Jimmy Savile blunder usher in a new, expensive, era of ‘repeats compliance’?
The BBC’s blunder in repeating an episode of the Tweenies this morning that featured a Jimmy Savile reference will no doubt usher in a review of the controls around selecting which children’s programmes to repeat. Was it avoidable?
June 26, 2012
Of course “The Newsroom” gets bad press. The reviews are written in a newsroom.
I haven’t seen “The Newsroom”, but I have seen the reviews, and it hasn’t been pretty. Likewise “The Hour” didn’t win many rave write-ups either. The unfortunately unique thing is that when writing a show about journalism, your reviews are posted by the very people whose activity you are trying to dramatise.
July 6, 2011
Behind the scenes on the CNN studio tour in Atlanta
Whilst I was in Atlanta I took the opportunity to take the Inside CNN Studio Tour, and was interested to see how an American news operation gets presented as a tourist attraction.
March 22, 2011
"Neither TV station nor repurposed website" - Sky News app for the iPad
My first impressions of the Sky News app on iPad have been very positive. They’ve promised that it gives “new ways to deliver news to our users”, and it is a very different visual approach.
July 30, 2010
Sherlock rebooted online as well as on screen
The BBC's new series 'Sherlock' has some interesting online activity associated with it, as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have not just arrived on screen in the 21st century, they have 21st century websites too.
April 22, 2010
The digital election: 10 things we've learned so far
I've been tracking the timeline of the 'digital election', and, with the second leader's debate taking place tonight, here are ten things about the new media campaign that I think we've learned so far...
February 1, 2010
Page Three plugs 3D
The Sun was plugging Sky's experimental live football 3D service - even on Page Three!
January 13, 2010
The UX of moving house: Part 7 - Sky's dreadful customer service
When I moved house last year one of the worst examples of user experience, both online and offline, was provided by Sky when I tried to get their TV service installed.
January 4, 2010
Too much David Tennant on TV? More like too many politicians if you ask me...
In response to claims that David Tennant was on BBC television too much over Christmas, a Conservative MP seems to think he appeared on over 200 channels.
December 14, 2009
"In the future, there will be journalists"
At a UCLAN workshop in Preston, I was part of a group trying to discover the digital skills and training that a young journalist in 2012 would need. This post explains what we thought the journalist of the future would look like.
December 10, 2009
'Linking out' makes "Live from Studio Five" more credible than Sky Sports
It seems an unlikely claim, but compared to a Sky Sports magazine that didn't feature any sporting event, however important, not actually shown on the channel in their "Decade of sport", Five's coverage of TV shows from 'the other side' was refreshingly honest.
October 26, 2009
Live-blogging the BNP on Question Time across the web
Live-blogging the BNP on Question Time
A look at how newspapers and political blogs covered Nick Griffin's BBC appearance online.
October 6, 2009
Revenue share deal spikes newspaper guns about England's pay-per-view Internet World Cup qualifier
The confirmation that England's World Cup match against Ukraine will only be available pay-per-view on the Internet reminds me of 2000, when an away game against Finland was only available on short-lived and obscure pay TV service u>direct. Perform, the rights holders this time around, have made a shrewd move in allowing newspaper websites to sell the game on a revenue share basis. Whilst I'm not suggesting filthy lucre has unduly influenced editorial decisions, it is certainly a lot...
August 28, 2009
The Ashes, personalisation and print
Mike Norrish wrote an interesting piece in The Telegraph this week, pointing out that the weekend's Ashes victory had not captured the national mood as much as it had in 2005. Stressing that at the time the 5th Test ended, Songs Of Praise was getting higher viewing figures than the cricket on Sky, he said: "You simply can’t enthrall a nation on subscription TV. The 2005 Ashes series pulled in 7.4 million viewers at its peak. Even people who didn’t...
July 18, 2009
The mysterious case of The Telegraph's anonymous columnist who cost the BBC £45,000
It was No Rock And Roll Fun who I saw pointing out that The Telegraph had reported on the BBC's £45,000 payout to the Muslim Council of Britain, all the time referring to an anonymous 'panelist' who had made the libelous statements on Question Time. Most other media outlets mentioned that the mysterious 'panelist' was Charles Moore. They also seemed to think the fact that he is a columnist for, and ex-editor of, The Telegraph was a significant element in...
June 29, 2009
How major publishers are using social media to drive traffic - Part 4
This is the fourth of a series of posts based on a talk I gave during May 2009 at WebCertain's "International Social Media Summit" in London. You can find the first part here, and view the original presentation slides on SlideShare. Twitter Twitter has been, without doubt, the communications technology hype of the year. There are several ways that mainstream companies have been using Twitter - some more successfully than others. One approach is to simply announce all content...
June 13, 2009
Is peer-to-peer streaming of international football showing the game a new revenue model?
When I lived in Greece it was sometimes a bit hit and miss whether I got to see England games. The time difference meant they were on late in the evening, and often there were competing fixtures of more local interest, or featuring Denmark, Sweden or Norway, from where a great deal of tourists to Chania originated. It meant that during England's doomed attempt to qualify for Euro2008 I got used to the UEFA live match centre, and relied...
June 12, 2009
Wembley on the web: Part 2 - The FA Cup Final online from Sky Sports and the BBC
Yesterday I started blogging about some of my thoughts on the live online coverage provided for the FA Cup Final between Chelsea and Everton, with a look at the websites of the two channels showing the game live, Setanta and ITV. Today I wanted to look at two networks who no longer have the rights to broadcast the game - Sky Sports and the BBC. Photo by umbrofootball Sky Sports For Sky Sports it must be a major irritation...
June 11, 2009
Wembley on the web: Part 1 - The FA Cup Final online from ITV and Setanta
Like much of the male half of the country, on Saturday 30th May I shunned the Cup Final weather to sit in a darkened pub and actually watch the Cup Final. Unlike most, I suspect, I picked a pub with wifi so that I could also monitor the live web coverage of the game from the UK's major broadcasters. Photo by umbrofootball ITV ITV had a big-hitting line-up on Saturday, but when you visited ITV.com during the game, the...
May 31, 2009
BBC Radiophonic Workshop Q&A at the Camden Roundhouse
On May 17th I went to see an evening with 'The Radiophonic Workshop' at Camden's Roundhouse, which was part of their Short Circuit festival of electronica. Yesterday I posted my review of the gig. Photo by Stickpeople Before the show started there was an hour long Q&A session with 5 members of the Radiophonic Workshop, which I was lucky enough to attend. Here are some of my notes from the event. The conference circuit Thanks to their involvement with Doctor...
May 30, 2009
BBC Radiophonic Workshop live at the Camden Roundhouse
"BBC Radiophonic Workshop live"
Read my review of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop gig at Camden's Roundhouse, along with my notes from the Q&A session which preceded it.
March 12, 2009
"An Open BBC?" at Broadcasting House
With my posts over the couple the last couple of days about The Guardian's Open Platform and m.guardian.co.uk, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was going to be wall-to-wall Guardian on currybetdotnet from now on. However, on Tuesday night I was back at one of my old stomping grounds, the BBC, for the event wrapping up Steve Bowbrick's time as the BBC's "open blogger". Although, to be fair, Emily Bell was on the panel, so there is still...
February 25, 2009
'Delivering Digital Britain' still too much about 'delivery'
I was lucky enough to get a seat yesterday morning when Lord Carter presented the next steps for his Digital Britain report at NESTA. The event was heavily over-subscribed and the busiest I've seen at NESTA HQ. The release of the report was heavily criticised in many quarters, some of which was captured by a move to put it into a more malleable format than the PDF document that was initially published. I wondered whether Lord Carter would address any...
January 29, 2009
Digital Britain Interim report - first impressions
Today is day that the interim 'Digital Britain' report was published by the DCMS. It follows hard on the heels of the Ofcom report into the future of Public Service Broadcasting as part of this curiously two pronged approach to sorting out the regulatory and policy future of the UK's media. I turned the Ofcom document into a Wordle cloud: I've done the same for today's Digital Britain interim report: And, as prompted by @JemStone, here is the comparison chart...
January 27, 2009
Terrestrial TV's invisible online DEC Appeal
I published a post earlier today looking at how I used to be involved with putting DEC appeals on the BBC website homepage, and thinking about how such an appeal might be fitted into the current personalised homepage design. I thought, this morning, it might be worth zipping around the websites of the three terrestrial broadcasters who had agreed to show the appeal, and look at how they were drawing attention to the plight of Gaza using their websites. I...
January 25, 2009
'The Fry Effect' - mentioning Twitter on the Jonathan Ross show
I assumed that on Friday night nothing short of appearing in sackcloth and ashes and spending the whole 59 minute slot groveling and apologising profusely could have placated the tabloids. I was rather more interested in the Jonathan Ross impact on Twitter. "All over. Won't reveal too much as press seem anxious to be all over this. JR & I discussed Twitter. Hope it makes the cut. Cruise charming" - @stephenfry Followers of @stephenfry and @wossy knew in advance that...
January 22, 2009
Ofcom framing a digital content strategy in a vacuum
My last thoughts on yesterday's Ofcom report. I wanted to do a blog post for tomorrow morning that looked at all the sections of the 127 page Ofcom PDF that dealt with the most important emerging trends involved with Internet delivery of content to an ever more interactive British audience. Below is a table of what I was looking for, and how many references to each concept I found in the 'Putting Viewers First' document. Search termInstances blogs0 blogging0 citizen...
January 21, 2009
'From programming to funding' - Ofcom's PSB documents as word clouds
If it is good enough for Obama's speech, then it must be good enough for Ofcom. Today the UK's broadcasting regulator published the latest output in their seemingly continuous reviews of Public Service Broadcasting. The headlines in the mainstream media will naturally concentrate on three big issues: Should Channel 4 be merged with someone else? Should anyone else get a share of the Licence Fee? Should ITV be able to reduce their regional news output? I thought it might be...
January 15, 2009
Channel 4's Andy Duncan calls for Internet regulation at NESTA event
I had the opportunity to be at NESTA this morning to see Channel 4's Andy Duncan give a keynote speech about the future of the creative industries in 'Digital Britain'. The speech contained a very strong call for UK regulation of the Internet. He described it as "bonkers" that the broadcast world was regulated, and the broadband world wasn't, when to his children they were indistinguishable. He fingered Google and ISPs as companies who were making huge amounts of money...
October 22, 2008
Social media: Contextual help on 24 hour news TV websites
Yesterday I was looking at how British newspaper sites provide contextual help around the social bookmarking sites that they link to. I found that The Sun provided a very comprehensive help guide, but aside from The Independent, and some 'mouse-over tool tips' from The Guardian, nobody else did. As part of my recent social media study I also looked at a selection of 24 hour news television channels, to see if they provided bookmarking links. Today I wanted to...
October 13, 2008
Social media and terrestrial television
During July and August I recorded over 3,500 URLs from mainstream media sites becoming popular on 8 social bookmarking services. Using the results I've so far published an e-book covering UK newspaper success with social media, and blogged about local newspaper and freesheet success, as well as writing a whole series on 24 hour news stations like CNN, the BBC, Sky News and Al Jazeera. Another group of sites I looked at was the UK's terrestrial broadcasters. I expected...
September 27, 2008
Social media and TV news: Measuring social media success
Over the last week I've been publishing a series of articles looking at the social media performance of the websites belonging to some 24 hour news channels, including CNN, the BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, Euronews and France 24. The results have been derived from a thirty day study I carried out in July and August 2008, taking half-hourly snapshots of Delicious, Digg, Fark, Mixx, Newsvine, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Yahoo! Buzz to look for prominent media URLs....
September 26, 2008
Social media and TV news: Measuring the social media success of Russia Today, Euronews and France 24
This week's series of posts on currybetdotnet have been looking at the performances of 24 hour news channel websites like CNN, BBC News, Sky News and Al Jazeera on social media websites. Today I wanted to look at 3 other stations that featured as part of my social media survey - Russia Today, Euronews and France 24. Russia Today on Reddit During the course of the month's study I only saw content from the Russia Today website on five...
September 25, 2008
Social media and TV news: Measuring Al Jazeera's success with social media
This week I've been examining the social media success of the website belonging to some major 24 hour news television stations. So far I've looked at impressive performances from the BBC and CNN, each with over 300 links going popular across 8 services during the course of a month. Yesterday I looked at a more modest performance by Sky News, and today it is the turn of the English language version of Qatar-based Al Jazeera. Newsvine During my study...
September 22, 2008
Social media and TV news: Measuring CNN's success with social media
During the course of July and August I set up a project to monitor the performance of major media sites on social bookmarking and link sharing services. Every 30 minutes I took snapshots of the front pages or 'recently popular' pages of Delicious, Digg, Fark, Mixx, Newsvine, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Yahoo! Buzz. I then extracted from that the popular URLs from a range of newspaper and television channel websites. You can read about the results for British newspapers in...
July 1, 2008
Watching Euro2008 on Zattoo in the heart of the BBC
As you may have spotted in my post about last week's TechCrunch / BBC debate at Broadcasting House, I attended it with one eye on what was going on in Basel. Thanks to wifi in the art deco Council Chamber where the debate was taking place, I was able to stream the first Euro2008 semi-final between Germany and Turkey silently on my laptop. The thing that struck me was that I used Zattoo to watch the game. At 7:40pm,...
June 20, 2008
"You're wired!" - 7 things The Apprentice can teach you about new media projects
I'd never watched The Apprentice until this year, when a procession of people we were staying with in London had it as unmissable 'appointment' television. I was immediately hooked, and once we got back to Greece, I had an unmissable 'appointment' to download the show as quickly as possible every Thursday morning, whilst trying to avoid 'spoilers' on the British media web. Throughout the series, I couldn't help thinking about the parallel lessons that could be drawn from the programme...
June 15, 2008
Zattoo (slight return)
With the climax of the Euro 2008 Group phase rapidly reaching its end, I thought it might be an idea to look again at Zattoo, the streaming TV service that gathers together all of Britain's terrestrial channels into one broadband player. What intrigues me about the service is the potential clash between sports rights holders, broadcasters and Zattoo. A month or so ago I used the example of the UEFA Cup Final, where Zattoo's streaming of ITV1 was, to my...
May 15, 2008
Zattoo and the rights holders - it is going to end in tears
I ended up watching last night's Euro Vase UEFA Cup Final rather randomly in a pub in Bayswater. Which turned out, in a Daily-Express-reader-nightmare-come-true, to be full of Zenit St. Petersburg supporters, rather than Little Englanders sticking up for our plucky North-of-the-border cousins. But I could have been watching it on Zattoo. It might sound like it could come from Eastern Europe, but Zattoo is actually a way of watching peer-to-peer delivered Internet streams of the UK's terrestrial free-to-air stations,...
May 2, 2008
Can you trust going to a 'Can you trust the media?' event for a good debate?
I've been lucky enough that whilst I've been in London for a month working, there have been a couple of interesting events that I have been able to go to. Last week it was Chinwag Live, and this week it was the launch of Adrian Monck's book "Can you trust the media?". It is some testament to the openness of media professionals in the UK that you could just walk into a college and go to a debate featuring big...
April 30, 2008
70 years of televised F.A. Cup Finals
It seems that for many years now football pundits have been claiming that the F.A. Cup has lost its sparkle, and hasn't been living up to the tradition of the tournament. Various reasons are often cited for this - the abolition of replays, Manchester United refusing to take part in 2000, and the fact that nobody outside 'the big 4' has won it for a decade. It will be slightly different this year, as successive 'giant killings' have left us...
March 20, 2008
Postcard from Macau #4: Hong Kong's missing TV archive
I recently spent three weeks visiting Macau, the former Portuguese territory on the south coast of China. As a former colony like Hong Kong, it is now a 'Special Administrative Region'. This post is one of a series looking at aspects of information design, user experience, internet use and journalism that interested me when I was there. In the first of my posts about my recent trip to Macau, I mentioned the Sunday Morning Post. This is an English...
March 8, 2008
The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Doctor Whoniverse
Thirty years ago today, at 10:30pm on a Wednesday night, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a new landmark sci-fi comedy - the first part of Douglas Adam's "The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy". I was first introduced to the radio series by a school friend. Staying round his house in the early 80s, we'd stay up as late as we could get away with, listening to some C90 recordings he had of the episodes. He didn't have totally impeccable taste mind...
February 24, 2008
The Buffy guide to the Internet - 1997 style
Back in 1997, in an episode called "I, Robot...You, Jane", Joss Whedon pitched Buffy The Vampire Slayer against a demon that had invaded the Internet. This article looks at all of the computer and technology in the episode. Was Sunnydale High was a Mac or Windows school? What does demon possessed computer software look like? And how can techno-pagans build 'circles of protection' using chat room software alone... Ms. Calendar: Oh, I know, our ways are strange to you,...
February 11, 2008
British television sci-fi is seventy today
It is a genre that has been a big influence and source of entertainment for me ever since I first saw Tom Baker's boggle-eyes staring out at me from the opening credits of Doctor Who when I was 4 or 5, and today is the seventieth anniversary of what is generally attributed to be the first piece of sci-fi television. On the 11th February, 1938, the BBC broadcast a thirty-five minute segment adapted from Czech playwright Karel Čapek's play "Rossum's...
January 31, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 16 - "Most Popular"
One of the user interaction elements I've been fascinated with over the years has been in the ways that people illustrate the activity that is taking place on their site. A visit to a website is often undertaken alone, in the sterile environment of using a computer. Visiting a site that lets you know that other people read this, or that people emailed this to a friend, or that popular searches are x, y and z, gives a site a...
January 30, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 15 - Lateral and related navigation II
As part of my look at the websites of 8 24/7 TV news channels, I've been reviewing the types of related and lateral navigation they use. Yesterday I looked at Al Jazeera, the BBC, CNN and Euronews. Today it is the turn of the other 4 sites in my survey - France 24, ITN, Russia Today and Sky News. I haven't done an exhaustive survey of all the variations and permutations available on each site. Instead, I took a screengrab...
January 29, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 14 - Lateral and related navigation I
In the previous post in my ever-lengthier look at the websites of 24/7 TV news channels, I examined some of the types of global navigation that the sites had in common. Today I wanted to start looking at the ways that users are encouraged to move between stories. In general the dominant types of page on a news site are the 'story page', and the 'index page' which carries links through to various 'story pages', usually arranged into a hierarchy...
January 28, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 13 - Global navigation and classification
I've been doing a series of articles looking at the websites of some of Europe's leading 24/7 English language TV news channels. This week I wanted to concentrate on some of the ways that the sites handle navigation issues. For a start we should note that all of the sites use nearly exactly the same type of global navigation structures. Links to stories are grouped into clusters by either the geographical locations of stories (e.g. UK, Middle East), or by...
January 24, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 12 - Search III
Over the last couple of days I've been specifically looking at the search features on the web sites offered by the Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, Euronews, France 24, ITN, Russia Today and Sky News sites. Or, in the case of Euronews, not looking at them. I've put together a feature comparison chart of what I saw, but before getting to that, I wanted to look at some general trends I noticed. Search box placement is nearly uniform All of the...
January 23, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 11 - Search II
Over the last couple of weeks I've been writing about the websites belonging to a group of 8 24/7 news channels that broadcast in English in Europe. In the last part I began an overview of the search facilities offered online by each site - starting with Al Jazeera, the BBC, CNN and the non-existent search facility of Euronews. Today I wanted to look at search across France 24, ITN, Russia Today and Sky News. France 24 France 24...
January 22, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 10 - Search
Having individually reviewed the websites of 8 24/7 news channels that broadcast in Europe to identify their Web 2.0 type features, I wanted to look specifically at the way they handle a very Web 1.0 piece of functionality - search. Al Jazeera Al Jazeera is the only site I looked at with a search service that does not have a search box on the homepage, or in the templates of story pages. Instead, the user has to select a text...
January 21, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 9 - Sky News
Two weeks ago, when I started this series of posts looking at the Web 2.0 features of 24/7 news websites, I intended to look at 8 news providers - based on the fact that they are widely available in the English language in Europe. So far I've examined the sites belonging to Al Jazeera, the BBC, CNN, Euronews, France 24, ITN and Russia Today. In this review I want to look at Sky News. One thing I noted about Sky...
January 18, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 8 - Russia Today
Over the last week or so I've been reviewing the Web 2.0 credentials of the websites of the 24/7 news channels most widely available in English in Europe. Some of them, like the BBC, CNN, France 24 and ITN have several features which echo the most recent developments on the internet. Others, like Al Jazeera and Euronews are much more static old-fashioned affairs. Today I wanted to look at the English language version of the Russia Today site. The site...
January 17, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 7 - ITN
Over the last few days I've been looking at I've the websites of Europe and the UK's English language 24/7 news channels, exploring the Web 2.0 features they offer. So far I've looked at Al Jazeera, the BBC, CNN, Euronews and France 24. Today I wanted to turn my attentions to the ITN website. Without a parent channel, which was closed in December 2005, and with minimal branding these days on ITV for their productions, their site has little to...
January 16, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 6 - France 24
I've been reviewing the websites of Europe's leading English language 24/7 news channels, looking for the kinds of Web 2.0 features like blogging, social bookmarking, and RSS feeds that they offer. So far I've looked at Al Jazeera, the BBC, CNN and Euronews. Today I'm turning my attention to France 24. This state-funded station opened in 2006, and is intended to provide a French antidote to the perception that the news agenda is dominated by the priorities of the UK...
January 15, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 5 - Euronews
Last week I started a series of posts looking at the websites of Europe's leading 24/7 TV news channels in the English language. Having looked at Al Jazeera, the BBC and CNN, this week I wanted to start with Euronews. Euronews is a partially EU-funded station owned by a conglomerate of 19 broadcasters across Europe. The Euronews website comes in 7 languages - English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Russian. RSS feeds Euronews does publish RSS feeds, and the...
January 11, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 4 - CNN
This week I have started a series of posts looking at the Web 2.0 features of 24/7 TV news websites. I started with the English edition of the Al Jazeera site, and the BBC News site. I'd like to finish this week's posts with a look at CNN. CNN is very proud to have been the first 24 hour news network to migrate onto the web, launching their site in August of what now seems the pre-historic era of 1995....
January 10, 2008
24/7 TV news websites: Part 3 - BBC
I'm doing a series of posts looking at the Web 2.0 aspects of the websites run by the 24/7 TV news channels that are widely available in Europe and particularly in the UK. Yesterday I started with a look at the English language edition of the Al Jazeera site, today I want to turn my attention to the BBC. The first thing to note is that, speaking from experience, within the BBC it all makes perfect sense, but the branding...