BBC release: BBC, ITV and Sky submit joint letter calling for three live televised election debates

The BBC has made the following announcement on its site:

“BBC, ITV and Sky have today written to the leaders of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties with a joint proposal for three live televised debates during the next general election campaign.

“The individual broadcasters would be responsible for producing and broadcasting one debate each between all three party leaders.

“Each of the three debates would be transmitted live by the originating broadcaster in peak time and made available to all other British broadcasters subsequently.

“The broadcasters have formed a joint team to discuss detailed plans with the political parties.

“Each of the broadcasters will seek to make suitable arrangements for ensuring due impartiality across the UK.”

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Broadcastnow.co.uk: Piers Morgan has no guilt about £2m ITV deal – and wants to double it

The Sun has pinched quotes from Broadcast’s excellent interview with Piers Morgan, published yesterday. Despite ITV’s economic woes, the former Daily Mirror / News of the World editor turned media celebrity, doesn’t feel an ounce of remorse over the £2m deal – in fact, he’s looking to double it.

“Piers Morgan will not be accepting a pay cut when his two-year, £2m golden handcuffs deal with ITV comes to an end next May.

“I am looking to at least double it. I’ve got no problem if they take it away from somebody else who feels guilty about this type of thing, because I have absolutely no guilt issues about my salary whatsoever. I think I’m worth every penny.”

Full interview at this link…

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BroadcastNow: Ofcom warns ITV could lose £64m a year on regional news

Ofcom has warned that the ITV network will be facing a loss of up to £64m a year by 2012, if it has to continue providing regional news bulletins, reports BroadcastNow.co.uk.

“The regulator indicated its support for establishing independent news consortia to deliver localised news across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.”

(…)

“The Digital Britain report released earlier this year also called for independent news consortias to take over the regional news slots on ITV, suggesting that the groups could comprise of existing media organisations and be funded by the surplus from the Digital Switchover fund.”

Full story at this link…

Related:

Last week John Hardie, ITN chief executive,  called for separate contracts for replacement ITV regional news services to be issued for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – ie. a single contract for the whole of England (via MediaGuardian).

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WSJ.com: ITV launching legal proceedings against STV for £38m debt

“ITV, a broadcaster, said Tuesday that it will be issuing legal proceedings against STV to recover a gross debt of £38 million; this debt has accumulated as a result of STV not honouring its contractual contributions towards the Network Programme Budget,” reports Dow Jones on the WSJ site.

• WSJ story at this link…

• ITV statement at this link.

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Sky News ‘Leaders’ Debate’ campaign gathers pace – and criticism

Sky News’ online petition calling for a live television debate for the General Election had attracted 4080 signatures at the time of writing.

Additionally, the Sky ‘Leaders’ Debate’ Facebook campaign launched on Tuesday has 176 fans so far – as yet a counter group doesn’t seem to have been set up by its critics, ITV and the BBC.

Yesterday the Guardian reported that ITV and BBC ‘have accused Sky News of potentially scuppering a televised debate between the three main party leaders ahead of next year’s general election after the satellite channel broke cover today by saying it would hold one even if Gordon Brown did not take part’.

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MediaGuardian: ITV suspending ITN news on website

MediaGuardian reports:

“ITV is to suspend carrying news supplied by ITN on its website from next month after ending its contract, resulting in the loss of five journalists from the content supplier.

“ITN On, the division of the TV news producer that supplies video and text to websites and mobile internet services, will stop supplying content to the ITV website on 22 July.”

Full story at this link…

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Ofcom will not investigate ITV over Britain’s Got Talent

According to this report on MediaGuardian, industry regulator Ofcom will not investigate ITV, despite receiving a ‘large number of complaints’ about Britain’s Got Talent – in particular the appearance of runner-up, Susan Boyle, in the final.

Speaking to a House of Commons select committee on press standards earlier today, culture minister Barbara Follett argued that Ofcom should hold informal talks with ITV over the incident.

This is a very difficult judgment, said Follett, exacerbated by the new media landscape.

“I first heard of Susan Boyle in the US, through YouTube. YouTube had brought her to the attention of the television networks,” said Follett.

With the advent of the internet, what you do in this room can be around the world in ‘24 minutes’, argued Follett.

“Your [the broadcaster's] duty of care is greater (…) She [Boyle] didn’t choose the effects, she wasn’t aware of the effects. She has been a victim of the changes that this committee has discussed,” she said.

“The beast that is the 24-hour news cycle has got much bigger in the last 20 years. The appetite of the beast is insatiable yet (…) they’re [media organisations] having to possibly chase after that food in a slightly more proactive way than they would have had to before.”

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MediaGuardian: BBC and ITV news partnership stalls – Manchester or Birmingham?

Plans for the BBC and ITV to share resources in a regional news partnership have hit an obstacle, with the parties unable to agree on where to trial the scheme.

According to this report, Manchester and Birmingham are both being mooted for the pilot, which could see the broadcasters share newsrooms, technology and video footage.

Full post at this link…

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Audio reporting tool Audioboo experiments with paid-for account for ITV

Since its launch in March, Audioboo, the service which allows users to record and upload short audio recordings, has notched up 30,000 registered users and been taken up by both hyperlocal and international news media.

This Saturday ITV.com is planning to use the tool as part of its FA Cup Final coverage: fans using the Audioboo iPhone app will be able to submit their audio reactions to the site.

Significantly this seems to be the first foray into running a paid-for version of an Audioboo account.

As CEO Mark Rock explains in this blog post, there will always be a free version of the tool, but the firm is developing a range of paid-for options intended for media organisations.

Audioboo Pro will be the version used by ITV tomorrow, ‘which will contain a series of web tools which make it easy for companies, particularly media companies, to manage content coming from their audiences’.

Key to these tools are ‘magic tags’ – a private tag that the account use can apply to any Audioboo content creating a specific feed for use in a player on their site. ITV are using this system to help moderate the ‘boos’ left by fans.

The use of Audioboo by ITV marks a focus by the broadcaster on capturing the online buzz about the match alongside the roar of the crowd within Wembley Stadium. As such, the site will use Twitter aggregator Twitterfall to stream relevant updates to the microblogging site.

In addition, using a tool developed by thruSITES:

“The players’ names and faces will appear alongside bars which will move up and down to reflect the buzz around players during the game. The tool will be available after the match so that fans can scrub along a timeline to see which players caused a buzz at crucial moments.”

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FT.com: Geldof’s Ten Alps in Northern Ireland TV news bid

Bob Geldof says his production company, Ten Alps, could replace ITV’s existing news network in Northern Ireland.

Geldof told the FT that Ten Alp’s could become a news supplier for the entire UK.

Full story at this link…

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