Tag Archives: British Broadcasting Corporation

Royal Television Society journalism award winners in full

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As Tony Burman predicted, the ‘news channel of the year’ award at last night’s Royal Television Society awards didn’t go to Al Jazeera. Instead, it went to the BBC – who did rather well on the night in several categories. Here’s the full list, with the judges’ comments:

Young Journalist of the year: Hannah Thomas-Peter – Sky News
“A combination of fantastic access and great insight has enabled our winner to help transform health coverage on Sky News.”
Nominees: Joe Crowley – Inside Out BBC South / Kate Taunton – Channel 4 News ITN for Channel 4 News

Nations and Regions Current Affairs: The Story of Michael Barnett – Inside Out BBC Yorkshire
“A powerful programme with a sure touch…with the confidence to let the story tell itself.”
Nominees: A Friend in Need – Focus ITV Meridian / Meat Hygiene – Week In Week Out Special BBC Wales

Nations and Regions News Coverage: Weston Pier Fire – The West Tonight ITV West for ITV1
“… comprehensive, engaging and professionally presented.  It had outstanding pictures and a real sense of an event which affected the whole community.”
Nominees: Boris’s Deputy – Ray Lewis Investigation BBC London News / The Darwin Trial North East Tonight for ITV1

Scoop of the Year: HBOS/Lloyds TSB Merger BBC News Channel
“… indeed ‘an extraordinary exclusive’ which heralded the extraordinary changes in the British banking system.”
Nominees: China – The Moment the Earth Shook ITV News / Canoe Man – Gerard Tubb Sky News

Presenter of the Year: Jon Snow – Channel 4 News ITN for Channel 4 News
“…yet another superb year, whether it was in the studio – interrogating politicians and bankers – or out in the field – from the Middle East to the United States. One jury member said ‘he’s just brilliant. There’s nothing more to say.'”
Nominees: Kay Burley – Sky News Sky News / Andrew Neil – BBC News

News Coverage – Home: The British Banking Crisis BBC News
“The winning entry started with a scoop of the first order and followed it with reportage and explanation of the highest quality. It was without doubt the story of the year and showed BBC News at its very best.”
Nominees: Ipswich – Guilty ITV News / Heathrow Crash BBC News

News Coverage – International: Congo Crisis ITN for Channel 4 News
“Top class coverage of a consistently high standard… It was totally comprehensive, enterprising and managed brilliantly to use small individual stories to explain the bigger picture.”
Nominees: China – The Earthquake ITV News / Conflict in the Caucasus – Newsnight BBC Newsnight for BBC Two

News Channel of the Year: BBC News Channel
“The winning news channeldelivered a fantastic series of scoops on the story of the year. It was a channel you had to watch to keep abreast of the breaking economic news.”
Nominees: Al Jazeera English News Al Jazeera English News / Sky News Sky News

Current Affairs – Home: Primark: On the Rack – Panorama BBC for BBC One
“… not only an engaging watch but… thorough and also went the extra mile to lay bare the whole chain from refugee camp to the High Street rail.”
Nominees: Omagh: What The Police Were Never Told – Panorama BBC for BBC One / The Secret Peacemaker BBC for BBC Two

Current Affairs – International: Undercover in Tibet – Dispatches True Vision for Channel 4 Television
“…a truly great current affairs film that sheds light on the future. Filmed just months before Tibet erupted into rioting, this extraordinarily brave programme, made at great personal risk and with much hardship, illuminated the tensions and troubles of the country, with powerful testimony and pictures.”
Nominees: Britain’s Most Wanted – This World Mentorn Media for BBC for BBC Two / Iraq’s Lost Generation – Dispatches Hardcash for Channel 4 Television

Innovative News: 10 Days to War – Newsnight BBC Newsnight for BBC Two
“The winning series harnessed everything from drama documentary to a special website to re-examine events leading to the Iraq war in 2003. The jury saw this as a brave and successful venture to capture a new and younger audience.”
Nominees: Unplugged Sky News / On The Frontline – Afghan Headcams ITV News

Specialist Journalist of the Year: Robert Peston – BBC News
“One journalist dominated this year’s specialist category.  [He] owned the story of the Credit Crunch and its impact on the whole economy.”
Nominees: Faisal Islam – Channel 4 News/ Channel 4 News at Noon ITN for Channel 4 News / Jason Farrell – Five News Sky News for Five News

News Programme of the Year: BBC News at Ten BBC News for BBC One
“In a vintage year for news output, this programme shone through. The jury felt it had led the way on a wide range of major stories and the experience and quality of its leading correspondents had simply been unmatched anywhere else. It had triumphed on the big story of the year but had supported that with first-class reporting throughout.”
Nominees: Five News with Natasha Kaplinsky Sky News for Five News / News at Ten ITV News

Camera Operator of the Year: Garwen McLuckie – Sky News Sky News
“The winner’s work in Africa was fearless and showed a remarkable empathy for the problems faced by people across the continent. His story-telling was impressive and his work demonstrated immense personal bravery and the highest technical skills.”
Nominees: Raul Gallego Abellan – Associated Press Television News Associated Press Television News / Stuart Webb – Channel 4 News ITN for Channel 4 News

Television Journalist of the Year: Robert Peston – BBC News
“The winning correspondent produced probably the most sustained run of scoops and exclusives in the history of broadcast news in the UK… It would not be an exaggeration to say that a large part of the nation hung on the winner’s words every night – he personally revived appointment-to-view.”
Nominees: Martin Geissler – Africa Correspondent ITV News / Emma Hurd – Sky News Sky News

Lifetime Achievement Award: Peter Wilkinson
“This year’s winner is, for the first time, a cameraman.  He is not a household name – but you will all recognise his work. Many of the defining moments of our era have been captured through his lens, and he is one of the true pioneers of his trade.”

Judges Awards: Zimbabwe News Teams
“[This year’s Judges’ Award] recognises and salutes the work of a disparate collection of journalists, cameramen, producers and others who work under the radar, who have helped the outside world to report and understand a major international story that would otherwise have remained largely hidden from view.”

Gold Medal: Stewart Purvis
“[The Gold Medal goes] to someone whose name may not be widely known by the public but who has influenced, directly or indirectly, virtually everything we’ve seen on screen tonight. He is, without doubt, one of the makers of modern television news.

BBC could share more technology with S4C/Trinity Mirror in Wales, says Trust chairman

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In a speech given to Cardiff’s Business Club last night, BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons added more weight to suggest more regional news partnerships between the BBC and competitors are in the pipeline:

  • More on partnerships: work is ongoing on partnerships in regional media with ITV; and between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide.
  • Could BBC enter into an IT-sharing agreement with S4C and ITV in Wales to reduce operational costs?
  • Revamp of Broadcasting House in Wales could benefit local media with technology sharing arrangements.
  • “Perhaps even Trinty Mirror could have a role to play too [in partnering the BBC for regional news provision], given their journalistic presence in Wales and their significant online operation.”
  • And, just in case you doubted it: “The BBC local video project is dead. We have told BBC news that it must come up with a different solution.”

Here’s his comments as a Wordle:

Wordle of Michael Lyons' speech to Cardiff Business Club

But, a note of caution from Lyons on partnerships:

“What we’re not interested in are proposals that simply transfer value from the BBC to other players in the market (…) Let’s make sure that we don’t inadvertently turn the BBC into the Lloyds Bank of the media world.”

Yesterday the Beeb’s Executive announced plans to link out to external news providers from its network of BBC Local sites.

Links for ICO’s call for senior public officials’ (including BBC) salary bands to be publicly available

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“Senior public officials salary bands should be publicly available as a matter of routine, according to new Guidance published today by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO)”, the ICO said, in a release today.

“Salary details, bonuses and performance related pay should be in the public domain to the nearest £5,000 band when there is a legitimate public interest. Disclosing exact salaries will only be required in exceptional circumstances,” the ICO said.

The Independent reported the ICO has said that “highly paid executives and presenters working for the BBC, and bosses of the newly nationalised banks, must disclose details of salaries and bonuses.

And here is where you can find that information:

Download the PDF of the release here: http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/pressreleases/2009/salaries_guidance_final230209.pdf

Download the PDF of the Guidance here:http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/freedom_of_information/practical_application/salaries_v1.pdf

Two examples concerning the BBC from the Guidance:

  • “The Commissioner determined that the BBC should disclose the salary band of the Controller of Continuing Drama, but not his exact salary, which was individually negotiated. He found that the legitimate public interest outweighed the intrusion of disclosing the salary band but not the additional intrusion of disclosing an exact salary. (ICO decision notice FS50070465, March 2008)”
  • “The Commissioner decided that BBC Northern Ireland did not have to release the fee paid to a presenter. The fee had been decided in confidential negotiations in accordance with the standard practice in the industry, and was therefore properly treated differently from the salary of a senior employee. (ICO decision notice FS50067416, January 2008).”

BBC trials News Radar project – how to see the ‘whole’ BBC news site

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Interesting first project prototype from the BBC’s journalism labs – the BBC News Radar: a way to track all BBC news stories as they are published/update online.

The tagline? “Monitoring low-flying news since 1998”

As Jake MacMullin points out in a blog post introducing the radar:

“One reason you may not be aware of how frequently we publish new content is that until now there has been no one place you can go to see all of the stories we publish on the news site. You can always monitor the front page or subscribe to RSS feeds of each of the various indexes you might be interested in – but you’ll only see a small sub-set of all of the stories we publish.”

Updates to stories already published are tagged in blue and in a Twitter timeline/Tweme style the automatically updating Radar page shows how long ago the new copy was published:

Screenshot of BBC news radar

An RSS feed would be nice – we’ll leave that as feedback, it’s in beta after all – but it’s a great way of seeing just how much news is being published in real-time.

Paul Bradshaw, Twitter and the art of predicting the interview

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Prior to his appearance to talk about Twitter on BBC West Midlands’ breakfast show this morning, Birmingham City journalism lecturer and Online Journalism Blog blogger Paul Bradshaw put out a call on the service to see if he and his followers couldn’t predict what questions he’d be asked.

[You can listen to the audio of the interview at this link until February 25 2009 – Paul’s interview comes in around the 2 hours 15 mins mark]

Here’s the full audio of the interview courtesy of BBC West Midlands and the Phil Upton Breakfast Show:

150 responses later and the #bbcwm tag became the seventh most popular search term on Twitter. Here’s the predicted interview (full names of Twitterers and responses can be seen on Bradshaw’s blog):

  1. Isn’t it a waste of time?
  2. What’s Twitter all about?
  3. What famous people are on it?
  4. Have there been any catfights on it?
  5. How do you ever get any work done?
  6. What advice can you give me on using Twitter?
  7. Can’t these people make real friends?
  8. Why would you want strangers knowing what you do?

And, of the five questions presenter Phil Upton got to ask, numbers 1, 2, 3 and 5. A bonus question – also predicted by Bradshaw’s followers – included ‘what’s the best tweet/tweeter you’ve seen?’. Aptly, Bradshaw used responses that had been sent by Tweeters to illustrate his answers.

Upton, who tweets at @flupton, had been following the responses to Bradshaw’s shoutout and may have used them as free research. Even if he didn’t base his questions on the #bbcwm replies there’s a strange ‘self-fulfilling interview’ prophecy going on here, with questions answered before the interview has even taken place…

BBC Trustees’ expenses: all online for your enjoyment (links and summary)

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Now this is an interesting media release to get in your inbox of a morning: a summary report and the full expenses for the BBC trustees 1 April-30 September 2008.

“In line with its commitment to transparency and openness, the BBC Trust decided in April 2008 to publish Trustees’ individual expenses with effect from April 2007. These are published on a six monthly basis,” the release said.

So, here you go: the expenses, in text summary form for the period April 1 to September 30 2008 here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/expenses/summary_apr_sept_2008.txt

Or full report in text here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/expenses/full_report_apr_sept_2008.txt

Or visit here for the PDFs (much easier to read): http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/about/bbc_trust_members/expenses.html

The full report lets you details a bit more specifically. During April – September 2008 report for example, Sir Michael Lyons had meetings at the Cinnamon Club, the Dorchester and the Wolseley, for example. Personal details, e.g names of hotels stayed in, are removed.

Download at this link

The interesting parts in digestable form:

  • Lots of BBC prom boxes for ‘external opinion formers’ = £3836.35
  • Wimbledon Tennis Championship – Sir Michael Lyons and Diane Coyle hosted an event for opinion formers = £9,803.99
  • The Trustee expenses amounts below include Trustee business entertainment (external and internal) / Subsistence / Mileage / Accommodation / Travel (other) / Travel –
    Driver/ Flights / Cars / Rail / Other (see links above for notes on categories).
  • Chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, £35,126.82*
  • Vice Chair, Chitra Bharucha, £8,754.01
  • Trust Member for Northern Ireland, Rotha Johnston, £7,154.62
  • Trust Member for Scotland, Jeremy Peat, £15,050.74
  • Trust Member for England, Alison Hastings, £8,341.96
  • Trust Member for Wales, Janet Lewis-Jones, £9,872.85
  • Trust Member, Patricia Hodgson, £1,546.88
  • Trust member, David Liddiment, £856.02
  • Trust Member, Mehmuda Mian, £448.62
  • Trust Member, Dermot Gleeson, £2,860.78
  • Trust Member, Richard Tait, £1,941.07
  • Trust Member, Diane Coyle, £1550.59
  • TOTAL = £93,504.96

    • * “Sir Michael Lyons’ expenses total includes half of the annual £25,000 cost for his access to a BBC car and driver. These costs are already reported in the BBC Annual Report and Statement of Accounts and is included here for completeness,” the report says.

Gaza images projected on BBC Broadcasting House

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Courtesy of photographer Fil Kaler come these images from BBC Broadcasting House on Portland Place, London, on Monday night: the International Solidarity Movement projected the DEC Gaza appeal onto the building in protest at the BBC’s decision not to broadcast the appeal. These other and other images relating to the Gaza protests can be viewed on Kaler’s Flickr account.

Gaza2

(c) All rights reserved Fil Kaler

Gaza1

(c) All rights reserved Fil Kaler

Guardian releases football data; BBC creates gossip widget

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New releases from the Guardian and BBC for fans of football and online innovations alike.

First up, the Guardian’s new Chalkboards, which give users access to player and match data as soon as the final whistle goes. There’s a competitive edge to creating your data mashups too, as the best chalkboards will be awarded prizes.

(Here’s my first attempt below from one of my favourite football matches of recent times. And yes, I do live on past glories.)

Screenshot of Guardian's interactive football 'chalkboards'

Users will be able to embed the boards on their own sites, as the Guardian hopes to encourage discussion both off and on-site.

According to a release from the title, the feature is part of Guardian News & Media’s new product development programme.

Meanwhile (and a hat tip to Paul Bradshaw’s blog), the BBC has created a widget of football transfer gossip – most significantly, it aggregates rumour links from other news sites, which is part of the Beeb’s remit to make better use of external links.

BBC and Sky News abstain from DEC Gaza appeal; Al Jazeera and Number 10 site show support

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The BBC has been on the receiving end this weekend of some fairly heavy criticism for not broadcasting an appeal from the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) for donations to help people in the Gaza region.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, a group of 50 MPs launching an Early Day Motion, 11,000 viewers and protestors outside Broadcasting House have urged the corporation to reconsider its stance.

“What we’re not going to do is run a free-standing appeal on our airwaves. We do want to cover the humanitarian story,  we want to cover it in our news programmes where we can put it in context and we can do it in a careful, balanced objective way,” said director-general Mark Thompson on BBC Breakfast.

Thompson also explained the decision via the BBC Editors Blog.

Sky News joined the broadcaster today in saying it will not show the DEC message – following up the announcement with an online debate with foreign news head Adrian Wells.

But elsewhere Al Jazeera will run public service announcements relating to the campaign from today and the 10 Downing St website is carrying a news release and link to the DEC site.

Meanwhile Tony Benn used an appearance on the Today programme to mention the appeal despite the BBC’s stance.

As such, there’s an argument that the BBC’s refusal to broadcast the charity’s appeal is generating even more coverage for it.

Blogger Martin Belam points out that an info box on DEC is carried on several pages of bbc.co.uk.

“Depending on where you stand, the BBC decision over the DEC appeal is either a fig-leaf to cover a previous lack of impartiality, evidence that the BBC will do absolutely anything to appease their Israeli masters, or a cunning ruse to to gain even more publicity for the appeal than merely broadcasting it ever would have done,” writes Belam.

As such, what is inarguable is the heated response that any coverage of the Gaza situation by the BBC will receive and the disagreement it will cause, says Belam.

A lose-lose situation for the Beeb?

UPDATE: The video has now been aired on ITN and you can view it here.

Channel 4 (part 3): BBC Worldwide could benefit from merger, says Duncan

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More comments from Channel 4 CEO, Andy Duncan, at the House of Lords Communications meeting:

  • ‘Synergy’, ‘Pluraility’ and ‘Radicalism’ appeared to be the keywords playing on Andy Duncan’s mind, as he explained his vision of a merger between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide.
  • Channel 4’s CEO felt the broadcasters could be beneficial to each other, holding on to their ‘distinctive’ brands while planning bold strategies for a bigger and brighter future. The question was, according to Duncan, ‘how much synergy is there?’
  • He highlighted BBC Worldwide’s DVD venture as an example, positioning Channel 4 as the ideal candidate to, ‘unlock some of the constraints’ placed on the BBC in the cross promotion of this enterprise.
  • Any notion of the station’s identity being absorbed and lost as a result of the plan was shrugged off by both Andy Duncan and Anne Bulford, the organisation’s financial director. “At heart, the culture would be aligned,” she claimed. “You have to maximise the commercial revenue you can get from that.”
  • Despite claims that the channel would effectively be syphoning the BBC licence fee ‘through the side door’, Duncan remained insistent that talk of merger was only a partial solution.
  • Duncan indicated direct funding from the licence fee could still be ‘a valid option’ in the long term. Pooled resources, radical action and strategic thinking would be needed if value were to be added to the organisations.