UTV Media, which owns the Channel 3 television licence in Northern Ireland as well as national radio station TalkSport, could be interested in selling its television arm to focus on radio and online.

The Independent quotes UTV director Scott Taunton as saying: “If that was something they [a buyer, presumably ITV] were interested in, we’d have a conversation. Less than a quarter of profits come from TV now. We’re essentially a radio business.”

UTV’s end-of-year results, published yesterday, revealed the group makes 70 per cent of its profits from radio.

• Brand Republic: Google surprises industry with 31 per cent profit rise
• LinkedIn growing by two new members every second
• New figures suggest continued growth for US magazine advertising
• FT results: FT.com paid-for subscriptions up 9%
• Record web traffic for Northcliffe Media’s regional titles

Al Jazeera English, the BBC News Channel and Sky News will do battle for the title of news channel of the year at this year’s RTS journalism awards later this month.

BBC News at Ten, Newsnight and Channel 4 News are shortlisted for news programme of the year at the awards, which celebrate excellence in UK television news and current affairs.

Two rival channels’ coverage of last summer’s riots are nominated for home news story of the year – Sky and Channel 4 – alongside Newsnight’s reporting of the phone hacking story.

The nominees for TV journalist of the year are Sky’s Alex Crawford, Channel 4′s Alex Thomson and Newsnight’s Richard Watson.

The full shortlist is not yet on the RTS website, but can be found below. The awards ceremony will be hosted by ITV newsreader Mark Austin, in London on 22 February.

Camera Operator of the Year
- Darren ‘DC’ Conway, BBC News
- Raul Gallego Abellan, AP Television News, APTN Global Video Wire
- Stuart Webb, Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 News

Current Affairs – Home
- Dispatches: Lessons in Hate and Violence, Hardcash Productions for Channel 4
- Panorama: Undercover Care, BBC Current Affairs for BBC One
- Dispatches: How to Buy a Football Club, Vera Productions for Channel 4

Current Affairs – International
- Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, ITN for Channel 4
- Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark, Al Jazeera English
- This World: Spain’s Stolen Babies, BBC Current Affairs for BBC Two

Innovative News
- Confronting The Looters, Sky News
- Sky News for iPad, Sky News
- The Stream: Bahrain, Al Jazeera English

Nations and Regions Current Affairs and News Event
- Inside Out South West: Multiple Sclerosis – CCSVI, BBC South West
- Week In Week Out: Cash for Qualifications, BBC Wales
- Insight: The Resurrection of Brendan Smyth, UTV Insight

Nations and Regions News Programme
- Calendar, ITV Yorkshire
- ITV London Tonight, ITN for ITV London
- Granada Reports, ITV Granada

News Channel of the Year
- Al Jazeera English
- BBC News Channel
- Sky News

News Coverage – Home
- UK Riots, Sky News
- Phone Hacking, Newsnight BBC Two
- The Summer Riots, ITN for Channel 4 News

News Coverage – International
- Disaster in Japan, ITN for Channel 4 News
- Libya, Sky News
- Misrata, ITN for ITV News

News Programme of the Year
- BBC News at Ten, BBC News for BBC One
- Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 News
- Newsnight, BBC Two

Presenter of the Year
- Mark Austin, ITV News, ITN for ITV News
- Anna Botting, Sky News
- Jon Snow, Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 News

Scoop of the Year
- Panorama: FIFA’s Dirty Secrets, BBC Current Affairs for BBC One
- The Fall of Tripoli, Sky News
- Panorama: Undercover Care, BBC Current Affairs for BBC One

Specialist Journalist of the Year
- Jeremy Bowen, Middle East Editor, BBC News
- Faisal Islam, Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 News
- Paul Mason, Newsnight, BBC Two

Television Journalist of the Year
- Alex Crawford, Sky News
- Alex Thomson, Channel 4 News, ITN for Channel 4 News
- Richard Watson, Newsnight, BBC Two

The Independent Award
- Somali Olympic Dreams, Jamal Osman for ITN/Channel 4 News
- People and Power: Seeds of Change, Elizabeth C Jones and Caroline Pare for Al Jazeera English
- FIFA’s Dirty Secrets, Andrew Jennings for BBC One

Young Journalist of the Year
- Joe Casey, BBC Panorama, BBC Current Affairs for BBC One
- Rohit Kachroo, ITV News, ITN for ITV News
- Tim Lawton, Channel 4 News/True Vision, ITN/True Vision for Channel 4 News

• Tom Giles made editor of Panorama
• Royal Television Society journalism award winners in full
• Guardian: Jeremy Vine to quit Panorama
• HoldtheFrontPage: Southern Daily Echo wins regional Newspaper of the Year award
• News teams nominated for 2011 BAFTAs

In a post on the BBC College of Journalism website documentary maker Eamonn Matthews lists a series of “rules” which journalists should be aware of when trying to get investigative documentaries on television, involving issues such as narrative, actuality and characters. In the post, which is an edited version of a chapter from the book Investigative Journalism: Dead or Alive?, published by Abramis, Matthews argues that journalists are more likely to get ideas accepted when they they have a better understanding of the “language of television, its demands and its power”.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – creating an editorial calendar
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• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – newsroom resolutions for 2012

Today the BBC announced the launch of a new product for connected TVs which, according to a release will see BBC News video news clips brought to television via the internet.

The BBC News product for connected TV combines existing video and text content from BBC News Online and will initially be made available on Samsung’s range of Smart TVs. It will subsequently be made available on a range of connected devices over time.

This is part of a “value for money” strategy to re-purpose BBC Online products for a wide range of devices. Editorial teams in the BBC’s newsrooms will work to curate clips to complement the 24 news channel and to run alongside text-based news from BBC News Online. And the control of what content the user views will be in their hands, with navigation via the remote.

BBC Worldwide is also said to be launching an international version which will be supported by advertising. In a blog post BBC Online editor Steve Herrmann said in time the product will also be rolled out to other devices in the UK.

• Online video: FT’s Stephen Pinches on opportunities for publishers with connected TV
• Innovations in Journalism – Fromdistance
• ESPN in video content deal with AOL.com
• AP pushing 250 stories a week through its newly launched YouTube channel
• BBC Editors: BBC using ‘interactive reporter’ to increase UGC

Reuters this week announced it had launched an online live stream service, providing video access to breaking and scheduled news events from around the world.

In a release the news agency said the live stream will provide a faster and cost-effective option to the traditional satellite news-gathering method.

“Publishers asked for customizable news video, and that’s exactly what we are delivering,” said Chris Ahearn, president of media, Thomson Reuters.”You will continue to see Reuters delivering tools that increase efficiency, reduce cost, and drive revenue. We are working hard to meet the growing demands of the media industry.”

According to Reuters the Tribune Company in the US and Fairfax Media in Australia were the first to adopt the new technology, to carry live coverage of the royal wedding.

• WSJ: Thomson Reuters reports 66 per cent profit increase
• Innovations in Journalism – live streaming video from mobiles developed by Qik
• Live stream from Gaza hosted on Ustream
• ReadWriteWeb: How a baseball iPhone app could create a new media model
• Innovations in Journalism – live geo-tagged video broadcast from Seero

Nominations have been announced for the 2011 British Academy Television Awards, with production teams at the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Sky all nominated within the News Coverage category.

The production teams behind BBC1′s Ten O’Clock News: Handover of Power, Channel 4 News: From Chile’s Ecstacy to Congo’s Agony, ITV News at Ten: The Cumbria Murders and Sky News: Egypt Crisis, all made the official list of nominations.

Other categories within the awards, which will be presented at a ceremony on 22 May in London, include Current Affairs, Single Documentary and Factual Series.

• Timetable for Press Awards announced
• Burma VJ film nominated for ‘Best Documentary’ Oscar
• US National Magazine Awards 2010 to award podcasts, video and mobile
• Obituary awards go online
• New York and The New Yorker lead National Magazine Awards finalists

Broadcast industry regulator Ofcom has announced that product placement will be allowed in UK TV programmes from 28 February 2011. The rules for paid-for references on radio broadcasts have also been revised.

Full news release on Ofcom’s website…

• Ofcom: Galloway’s Press TV programmes in breach of code
• Ofcom: where does it stand on internet regulation?
• MediaGuardian: Ofcom supports ITV plans for cutting back regional news coverage
• Ofcom considers removal of regional media ownership restriction
• Ofcom’s PSB review – a round-up

Plans for YouView, a new TV service offering on-demand and internet-connected features from BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva, have been criticised by local TV operators and production firms.

Geraldine Allinson, chairwoman of KM Group and Helen Philpot, managing director of north Lincolnshire TV channel Channel 7 CIC, were amongst the signatories of a letter to the Times late last week that said YouView had been “parachuted” into the “new and exciting market” of internet-connected television sets.

The full list of signatories:

• Peter Williams, Peter Williams Television;
• Jim Deans Global Digital Broadcast/Devlin Media;
• Graham Cowling, TVChichester;
• Rodney Hearth, the UK Entertainment Channel;
• Geoff Kershaw, Channel Green TV;
• Alan Cummings, Channel 9 TV/UC Business;
• Marilyn Hyndman, Northern Visions / NvTv;
• Dave Rushton, Institute of Local Television;
• Daniel Cass, SIX TV;

Jaqui Devereux, United for Local Television.

The objections from the group echo those made against the BBC’s proposals to expand its local video content, which were rejected by the BBC Trust in November 2008.

The letter says that YouView could “hijack the fledgling local TV market” and calls for a thorough competition investigation of the platform:

Collectively these organisations control nearly three quarters of all television viewing and the entire digital terrestrial TV transmission network.

The BBC and its partners claim that YouView offers a common set of technical standards that will help everyone get the best out of this exciting new world. But it can equally be interpreted as an attempt by some of the biggest players in the business to hijack this fledgling market, impose their own vision of how it will operate and dictate the viewers’ experience.

The joint venture partners will control all aspects of the platform and its operational policies. If any third parties wish to participate, they will have to do so on the terms dictated to them by the UK’s largest free-to-air broadcasters.

Full letter at this link (subscription required)…

paidContent:UK takes a look at why local TV providers should work with YouView…

• Media release: BBC announces launch of web-connected TV product
• Channel 6 to partner with universities across the UK
• FT.com: App stores for TV
• A new Chinese Arabic language TV channel
• BBC Blog: IPTV is ‘arguably the platform of the future’

American’s confidence in television news is at its lowest since 1990, according to the latest figures from Gallup.

The organisation interviewed 1,020 adults for its annual Confidence in Institutions survey. Only 22 per cent of respondents said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in television news; 25 per cent said the same for newspaper news.

While the figures have remained pretty stable from 2007 onwards, confidence in television news 10 years ago was at 36 per cent and newspapers 37 per cent.

Newspapers and television news were in the bottom half of the rankings for the 16 institutions in the Gallup poll: newspapers came in 10th and television news 12th, above only “big business”, “organised labour”, “congress” and “Health Maintenance Organisations”.

With nearly all news organizations struggling to keep up with the up-to-the-minute news cycle and to remain profitable in the process, Americans’ low trust in newspapers and television news presents a critical barrier to success. The Pew report asserts that 80 per cent of new media links are to legacy newspapers and broadcast networks, making clear that traditional news sources remain the backbone of the media. But so long as roughly three in four Americans remain distrustful, it will be difficult to attract the large and loyal audiences necessary to boost revenues.

American’s Confidence in Newspapers and Television News by Age

(% “great deal”/”quite a lot”)

Full post at this link…

• Distrust in US media at record high, according to Gallup poll
• Your chance to vote in the American election without citizenship
• Journalism in Africa: Rwandan journalists protest new law; Kenya’s media voted most trustworthy institution
• OJR.org: News convergence isn’t necessarily easy for student journalists
• Trust in journalists in steep decline, says YouGov research

The BBC is planning to link its catch-up TV service with Twitter and Facebook. The new version of the iPlayer will allow viewers to comment and chat about what they are watching without leaving the service. Similar services have been tested for one-off events by other broadcasters using the Facebook Connect tool and by sites such as Livestream, but this is a notable step by the BBC towards internet-connected television.

Full story at this link…

• The Next Web: Guardian to integrate with Facebook Connect
• FT.com: App stores for TV
• Media Culpa: Promoting Facebook groups is breach of Swedish broadcast act
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – driving online engagement from offline activity
• Local TV operators criticise new service YouView in letter to Times

A quick update on developments with Sky News’ breaking news Twitter account, launched by the broadcaster in December – the @skynewsbreak account is now incorporated in the news ticker running across the top of the SkyNews.com website.

Sky News Online executive producer Julian March first mentioned plans for this when speaking to Journalism.co.uk in January about increased use of social media for newsgathering amongst Sky News staff.

• Poynter Online: Social media literacy is goal for Sky News’ digital staff
• CNN to broadcast first live news show from Abu Dhabi with new hub
• Just under tenth of UK Twitter traffic diverted to news and media sites
• MSN UK’s new homepage: the tour
• Traffic from LinkedIn to BBC News jumps tenfold in six months

As a postscript to today’s link to a BuzzMachine post on messy comments, here’s Doug Stanhope on why your opinion doesn’t matter, from Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe last month.

• Charlie Brooker on how broadcast journalism works
• Welcome to a ‘Charlian’ page. Nothing but Charlie Brooker.
• Heather Brooke on how British journalists avoid accountability by not naming sources
• A lesson in SEO from Charlie Brooker
• Guardian: Charlie Brooker on search engine optimisation

Charlie Brooker on the latest episode of his satirical masterpiece Newswipe sends up the ‘visual language’ of a typical standard TV news report.

Watch with the sound turned off and you will realise just how close to the bone he cuts.

• Heather Brooke on how British journalists avoid accountability by not naming sources
• Why your opinion doesn’t matter
• Guardian publishes correction… before the readers write in
• A lesson in SEO from Charlie Brooker
• Welcome to a ‘Charlian’ page. Nothing but Charlie Brooker.

Business Insider’s Chart of the Day is a cheering one if you work in American TV.

According to US data from Neilsen:

“When looking at average time spent watching each, TV viewing actually grew more – per hour, per person, per month – over the last year than web video. Last quarter, the average US web video viewer watched 3 hours, 11 minutes per month, up about 1 hour each, year-over-year. But the average US TV viewer watched over 40X more video: 141 hours per month, up about 2 hours year-over-year.”

‘Chart Of The Day’ at this link.

• Mixed fortunes for top US newspapers in November traffic figures
• Business Insider: Chart of the Day – 24% of US newspapers don’t use digital delivery platforms
• Yahoo: US papers grew online audience 6 per cent last year
• BBC News audience up by a quarter on last year
• Fitz & Jen: US Print Council defends newspapers with environmental campaign

Leading television journalists explain how they use new technical developments in their work.

• War correspondents’ awards adds online journalism prize
• Guardian.co.uk: Cyber attack forces Arab TV station website name-change
• Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – seek out online altruism
• Local TV operators criticise new service YouView in letter to Times
• Currybet.net: Journalists need to think like programmers