Archive for the ‘Broadcast’ Category

Can social media save BBC 6 Music?

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Today Twitter and Facebook are buzzing with responses to the news that the BBC is rumoured to be closing down its 6 Music station. Although the corporation has said nothing to confirm the move, it was lead story in The Times this morning and apparently has already sparked a bidding war with Absolute Radio the frontrunner to buy the station.

The move to close 6 Music is part of a plan that has allegedly been proposed by the BBC hierarchy to rein in some of the corporation’s activities. Other potential changes include halving the size of the BBC website and introducing a cap on the amount of money the BBC can spend on sport. As The Times suggested this morning the BBC’s management is clearly hoping that buy making cuts now it can avoid what many media watchers are predicting will be much deeper cuts after the next general election.

It is however the possible mothballing of 6 Music that has sparked the greatest amount of online activity. Jon Morter, the man who masterminded the Rage Against the Machine Christmas #1 campaign, has now established a new Facebook campaign called “Save BBC 6 Music”. Inspired by recent pronouncements about the possible demise of the station it has already picked up over 56,000 vocal members. By mid afternoon another 7000 people had joined the group.

Meanwhile on Twitter #BBC6music has been trending all day with comments like these

#BBC6music threatens commercial radio?? It can only be a good thing! When has there ever been a decent commercial radio station? #save6music

BBC continue to pay Wogan, fund garbage like ‘Total Wipeout’, ‘Strictly’ & Webers free publicity shows, yet threaten to cut #bbc6music. Huh?

Some tweeters are already sporting save 6 Music badges on their profile pics

So will this new campaign have the same impact and be able to help save BBC 6 Music?

From this juncture it is very hard to tell, but with this amount of activity inspired by what really is little more than a rumour at the moment, it is clear that BBC 6 Music fans are going to fight very hard using social media tools to save their station.

From using Twitter to source opinions for Radio Five Live phone ins through to its Facebook pages and blogs the BBC has worked hard to incorporate social media into online output. It’ll be interesting to see how responsive it is to a very vocal campaign that uses the same tools it already harnesses so effectively.

Tags: bbc 6 music, facebook campaign, Jon Morter, radio, social media
Posted in Broadcast, Social Networking, facebook | 2 Comments »

Learnings from IBC – part two

Friday, September 26th, 2008

Since my last post was a little on the negative side, it’s time to lighten things up and talk about some of the sool stuff that was on show at IBC. So here’s a run down of my picks of the show:

Accedo: These guys (from Sweden) put stuff on your TV that isn’t TV content – usually games and interactive services – but at IBC, they were demoing a service wher social media applications such as YouTube, facebook and flickr to the TV screen. While it can be argued that things like Windows Media Centre do that already, Accedo’s slant is that they’re not simply replicating the web experience, but actually optimising the application for the TV platform. From what I’ve seen, this really comes to life for media heavy apps like Flickr, where you can present high quality slideshows on the big screen.

However, for some of the more communication based web-apps, you’d want to combine the TV experience with the online experience. Inuk Networks, the company behind student IPTV service Freewire used the show to talk about what they call “a truly converged triple-play IPTV service incorporating television, voice and PC applications within one interactive interface” Round the corner, expect to see “Lewis is watching Prison Break” as an automated Facebook status update, and things like updating your twitter feed or sending social network messages from within your TV’s EPG. Inuk’s Nick Ruczaj also told me that they’re planning to open up the Freewire API to let folks build their own widgets which will add interaction to the viewing experience. in my opinion, IPTV apps would be a great place for budding developers looking to get a foothold in the world of media convergence.

Speaking of which, Qualcomm had some interesting concept demos which looked at using 3G blended with its MediaFLO technology to get the Inuk-esque interactivity on mobile phones. It was nice to watch, and while it’s a concept at present, I think the issue here is going to be screen real estate. Only devices like the iPhone are really going to be able to deal with that much information on screen in a useable way. But with plenty of device manufacturers replicating the big screen interface, it won’t be long before concepts become reality.

Posted in Broadcast, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Local news for local people

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

It’s good to see it’s not all doom and gloom at the UK’s regional papers. I enjoyed Jon Clements post about the way the 140 year old Manchester Evening News is integrating print, online and broadcast. Jon quoted Assistant News Editor, Paul Gallagher, explaining that the breadth of options gives them and their audience more choice and quality, as “decisions on news are very much based on its suitability for the medium“. Although good co-ordination is needed – “the paper tends to time the release of online news with the hard copy, so not to compete with itself.” . The delicate balance of timings required within an integrated sell-in, to optimise press and broadcast needs is something we’re well familiar with!

The variety of sources used by MEN journalists is also great. From memorial sites on social networks to mobile videos – something that is going to become ever more prevalent in the next year. The likes of Qik and Kyte allowing instant street-to-web streaming are going to speed up the news cycle even more. It reminded me of the recent post by fellow-PR Wadds, where he became a citizen journalist of his local flooding. As well as conversations I’ve had with Gary Andrews around the way Twitter can and is used by journalists to contact people live-twittering events for quotes, information and images. Gary’s post on The Chicago Tribune’s usage is a great example, as have been the recent hurricanes.

There are slip-ups to be made in this process, I think most people agreed that the Twittering of a funeral last week was in bad taste. But generally it’s great to see the way technology is allowing regional news to be reinvigorated and genuinely interact with their audience – potentially moving towards offering a sense of community hubbed online, that many of us have lost in our neighbourhoods.

Posted in Broadcast, Microblogging, Mobile, New Media, Print, User Generated Content | No Comments »

Next generation journalism

Friday, July 4th, 2008

We were keen to read about the revamped blogs on the Sky News site this week, having come into contact with the Sky News team as part of our work on the Sky Young Journalist Awards 2008.

The new News site incorporates more video content, interactivity and varied blogs. Including Viewpoint which provides insight into journalistic choices and viewer responses, like this explanation of their coverage of the Jerusalem bus bomb on Monday. At the lighter end of the scale I think The Weather Girls and Miss H.Chondriac battle it out for the best pseudonym, not quite London Review of Breakfast level but pretty good – I’m a sucker for a pun clearly.

It’s interesting to see the changes following our work with Sky Learning to support the Young Journalist Awards. We have been helping them manage a series of blog posts syndicating between the Editor’s Blog and Bebo as well as general outreach about the awards. Pick up on sites like Journalism.co.uk, the Online Journalism Blog and student sites like The Student Zone show that journalism continues to be an attractive career choice.

There’s much doom and gloom among the industry, but these awards reinforce what an exciting career journalism still is. We wade through a lot of teen lol-speak here at Shiny, but I think that the exposure to blogs, 24/7 news and not to mention the fine art of the Facebook status, will inspire more not less kids into the profession. Whether on or offline, lots of young people are more immersed in communications and news than ever before. Hopefully interativuty and openness like that on the Sky News site will encourage more young people to get involved and hit the keyboard!

Posted in Blogging, Broadcast, Client News, PR and Marcomms, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

Honda – Difficult Is Worth Doing

Friday, May 30th, 2008

The Honda team are rightly proud after delivering the UK’s first ever live TV ad on Channel 4 last night.

They lived up to the ‘Difficult Is Worth Doing’ mantra, setting a high bar for live ads with a 19 man, 3 minute 20 second skydive!

We spotted the Difficult Is Worth Doing blog a few weeks ago, which has been used really nicely for some clever buzz-building. Honda gained amazing coverage in the run up across press, and advertising blogs like Scamp are already rightly touting the ad as a shoe in for awards.

Posted in Broadcast, PR and Marcomms, Video | 1 Comment »

Twitterbowl brings out the armchair ad pundits

Monday, February 4th, 2008

superbowl twitter At the climax of last night’s Superbowl, Eli Manning threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to win the game with 35 seconds to spare. The New York Giant’s 17-14 win over the New England Patriots is now being touted as the best ever. But advertisers are yet to decide on whether their investment in the US’ television industry’s single biggest sporting event of the year have been worth their while.

140 million Americans tune into the game at some point, and with the style of play meaning that ad breaks run every 3-4 minutes, Superbowl sunday has, for a long time, been the pinnacle of advertising creativity and budget. With brands spending $90,000 per second for a slot during the game, you only get one shot at making an impression. Superbowl has produced some of advertising’s most famous slots, Apple’s “1984” is often cited as having a lasting impact on the ad-world.

However, for this year’s game, feedback was a little more immediate. Web strategist Jeremiah Owyang issued a call to the marketing industry to use Twitter to vote for their favourite or least favourite ads during the game. By replying to @superbowlads, users could register their feedback and view other people’s thoughts on a search results page. So, in addition to game reaction from the likes of Todd Defren and Amanda Gravel in the Pats corner, and Jason Calcanis backing the Giants, Twitter was deluged with comments on the multi-million dollar commercials breaking up the action. As the game was screened on the BBC over here, I’ve yet to give my “two cents” on the spots themselves, but I’ll be browsing the a selection that’s being hosted on a purpose built Myspace page.

Posted in Broadcast, General, New Media, PR and Marcomms | 2 Comments »

Comcast launches latest addition to the IPTV world

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

The convergence of TV and the web is a subject we’ve mentioned before, and this week’s CES event, which showcases the latest developements in home entertainment, has brought two more IPTV stories to the fore.

Firstly, online movie rental company Netflix teamed up with LG to develop a set-top-box that will allow owners to stream movies for viewing on their television. Secondly, US cable giant Comcast has announced the launch of Fancast, which will offer its subscribers the chance to view episodes of over 100 different shows from most major broadcasting networks online.

The industry trend of media portability, which sees viewers gaining more choice of where and when they watch TV content through technology such as the Slingbox, has previously sparked controversy. But initiatives like Fancast, Joost and NewsCorp/NBCs Hulu show the makings of real commercial buy-in to the concept of TV, but not as we’ve known it.

For brands, the convergence of TV and the Internet provides new opportunities as well as challenges whereby 3-minute clips replace 30-minute episodes, and Dailymotion and Revver unseat the watercooler for discussion on what great TV we’ve seen.

Posted in Broadcast, Video | No Comments »

Mediatech report – when is the TV/web ad tipping point?

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

I was fortunate enough to not only attend but also present at the Mediatech event yesterday at London’s Imax. The event, which is organised by Library House the Cambridge based group who monitor start ups and investment, featured many key UK entrepreneurs, representatives of new companies, a smattering of VCs and a group of bloggers including yours truly.

In spite of all the activity around the content creation side of web 2.0 much of the conference seemed to focus on advertising solutions. This was especialy pertinet for me as Shiny Media’s income is almost entirely derived from brands booking space on our sites. We, both Shiny and other UK media comanies, have witnessed a strong and steady growth of advertising spend online in the last 18 months or so, but not the huge migration of ad pounds from TV advertising that many had predicted.

It is this belief that online will usurp TV in ad spend that is driving the funding of many web 2.0 start ups and also the acquisition by large media companies of sites like MySpace, YouTube and closer to home, Trusted Reviews. So when is the tipping point? Emily Melton, Director of VC company Draper Fisher Durvetson, one of the most influential and imaginative US VC companies, offered her thoery and for me it’s one that makes sense.

(more…)

Posted in Broadcast, Events and Conferences, Web 2.0 | 3 Comments »

Prolonging the magic

Friday, October 5th, 2007

This week’s Media Guardian reports on a new TV ad for Sony’s Bravia TV brand. From the people that brought us 300,000 bouncing balls in San Francisco, and hundreds of paint explosions comes the smile-inducing footage of 200 coloured bunnies hopping around New York.

The shelf life of TV ads has generally been shortening, with demand for creativity and new ideas leading to 30 second spots being churned out and subjected to weekly scrutiny by the industry and the family sofa alike. The advertising industry has always wanted to keep their creations secret until the big “reveal” moment, but Sony’s decision to shoot ads that simply can’t be hidden from the public eye is one of the elements that has led to longer and more inclusive conversations taking place online.

The web has meant that talking about brands and their marketing efforts is no longer limited to a quick chat during the ad break. Spots like Cadbury’s Gorilla and Sky’s Cool Cat have both struck chords with an online audience and led to comments, blog posts, and mainstream news coverage alike. With this in mind, the future of advertising is set for more “leaks” more “behind the scenes” and more public discussion.

Posted in Broadcast, New Media, PR and Marcomms, Video, Web 2.0 | No Comments »