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Round-up: Media Futures conference 2009 – ‘Beyond Broadcast’

“Gradually more power cuts – the future is more certain than you think (…) With 90 per cent certainty I can tell you that tomorrow will be Saturday.”
James Woudhuysen, professor of forecasting, De Montford University

“Content is not king, it’s about how people use it. SMS is one of the most expensive mediums but still massively popular.”
Matt Locke, commissioning editor, education new media, Channel 4

The above quotes were just a small sample of the varied and interesting points discussed at Media Futures 2009 in London last Friday.

The conference explored the future of the media as we move ‘beyond broadcast’.

Speakers and guests included the BBC’s Richard Sambrook, POLIS director Charlie Beckett and TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher.

Themes for discussion included desirable, feasible, challenging and viable futures for the industry.

Television
Video on Demand (VOD) was a popular topic, which divided opinions. Avner Ronen, founder of Boxee, a video service that connects your TV to online streaming media, argued that personal video recorders (PVR) were soon to be obsolete.

But as media analysts, including Toby Syfret from Enders, were quick to point out, TV still has a lot of life left in it. According to his analysis, despite the success of services such as the BBC iPlayer, watching streamed content remains a niche market with just 0.5 per cent of total viewing time being spent on computers.

Newspapers
Panellists were agreed on the future for local newspapers. Patrick Barwise, professor of management and marketing at London Business School said: “Local newspapers won’t come back, the classified advertising model that held them together has changed.”

After the conference I ran into Bill Thompson, the BBC’s technology columnist. Listen below to hear his views on the future for journalists:

Alex Wood is a multimedia journalist and social media consultant based in London. You can find him on twitter here.

Whatever the platform, whatever the technology, it’s the stories, stupid!

Students rise to a challenge if you trust them and give them one. This week they’ve learnt that stories matter. As previously reported on this blog, my students – aided by my colleague Andrew Noakes and me – have been providing live reports on cutoday.wordpress.com from the Play the Game Conference in Coventry. To say this has been a rip-roaring success is an understatement.

The product and its appeal has shocked even hardened hacks like me and my fellow lecturer Andrew. The students have seen and scaled an online Olympus.

Let the figures speak for themselves: over 5000 hits  in four days before the conference has ended; hits received from all over the world and overnight they go up 500; 100+ posts for the week – the daily record so far is 30, from a staff that never exceeded ten. All contributed by students, bar two lecturers giving help and advice.

We’ve provided print, audio and video and a link to a live-stream of some of the events. These lessons in live journalism have taken place in the blogosphere and are very transferable.

But, Content is King. Keep putting up real and interesting stories in all media. The audience will find them and find them very quickly. One video on drug testing had 50 hits in the first five minutes.

It’s the video and audio which sells, especially if original and exclusive. Keep refreshing the stories with new one and new angles. People will come back to find the new. Vary the texture of stories with length and embeds. Remember that you are writing for a net generation with the concentration span of a gnat.

Tease and trail the speakers, profile them, preview them and then report them. Remember what happens in the conference hall (sometimes the live audience was, er, all of 15) is just the front-end; your audience is out there on the blogosphere worldwide. Via the internet, you can reach and refresh parts that many thought could never be reached – and do so in seconds and in some style.

But the central lesson is the obvious one. Produce good readable and accessible journalism. Assemble motivated hacks manqué, get them working quickly and accurately, finding angles and writing the stories up well. But make sure they are subbed and checked – one student was surprised to learn that the Lord Mayor of Coventry had changed since last year… But the mantra should always be – as Jim White of the Daily Telegraph once put it to my students – ‘good copy delivered on time…’

Whatever the platform, whatever the technology, it’s the stories, stupid. No stories, no content, no audience. It’s a lesson we have all learned quickly.

John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University. He ran cutoday.wordpress.com at the 2009 Play the Game Conference. Most of the hard work was done by his colleague Andrew Noakes and a small group of students of journalism at Coventry University.

Why Jeremy Paxman is the new Charles Wheeler

Tonight he steps up to get the first ever Charles Wheeler Award at Westminster University from his boss Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general. Paxo is now the worthy wearer of Wheeler’s Crown. Well deserved.

Charles loved words and using them. So does Paxman. Witness this week, Paxman calling Esther Rantzen a ‘retired television nabob’. Ouch.

It’s what good journalists do; we use words. Charles transformed any film which he reported. I’ve seen very so-so stories become very good watches when reported by Wheeler. Paxman, lest we forget now that he is in a warm studio, was the best film reporter of his generation. Look at some of the films from the Central American frontline 30 years ago. The man learned early.

Charles liked to cause mischief. All good hacks do. He was once heavily censured by the BBC bosses for being rude to royalty on tour. Did he care? Not a jot! Think Paxman and Blair: ‘Do you and President Bush pray together?’ and my all-time favourite to Shaun Woodward, the new MP for St Helens in deepest Lancashire: ‘Mr Woodward did your butler vote Labour?’ (Woodward is very rich and was parachuted to St Helens. He did have a butler).

Charles was less the master of the studio than Paxo has become. Charles always looked a mite uncomfortable, Paxo not. A caged animal waiting for its prey. It’s no wonder Gordon Brown refuses to be interviewed by him. Paxo takes Newsnight up a gear when he presents it.

Both are, to use that wonderful English word, ‘curmudgeonly’. So what? There are too many smiling faces on TV and too many autocuties. Curmudgeons find things out – even if they do not make huge numbers of friends. But then good hacks are loners.

For all of their similarities (and differences) who can begrudge Paxo the title of King of the TV Journalism jungle? Not me.

John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcasting at Coventry University. He produced last month’s Media Society Annual Award Dinner for Jeremy Paxman.

Note: updated with subbing corrections 21.05.09

FIPP 09: Lévy’s forecast gloomy but print magazines still important for luxury brands, says Gucci Group media director

There aren’t enough ad dollars on the planet for everyone, Stevie Spring, chief executive of Future, said, in her opening remarks for yesterday’s session at the 37th FIPP World Magazine Congress that looked at ‘what advertisers want’.

Magazines are ‘all having to fight much much harder to grow our share of media spend,’ she added. So, she asked, just ‘what the hell’ did advertisers want from magazines?

Nikolas Talonpoika, worldwide media director for the Gucci Group said that he thinks online will see a decrease in advertising spend from the luxury sector.

Magazines are still the most important part of the Gucci Group’s print advertising spend, Talonpoika told delegates.

While acknowledging that this year is tough and ‘lots of titles will disappear this year, Talonpoika was optimistic for the role that print magazines will continue to play.

Unilever’s CMO, Simon Clift said that for his company the ‘lion’s share’ of advertising is in television, and only 13 per cent of its overall advertising budget is spent in print – but said the magazines accounted for 90 per cent of that print spend.

Clift said that his company – which, with its £41 billion turnover, is seeing three quarters of its growth in developing and emerging markets – is thinking about different ways to promote its products via print.

For example, one Greek newspaper was once printed entirely on aromatised paper for one particular washing product campaign.

Clift said that consumers were not beginning to ‘define the agenda’ and that Unilever was looking for new ways to promote brands via editorial or advertorial content.

Clift argued that these methods ‘can build integrity rather than compromise it,’ he argued. Joking that advertising was something editors have to put up with, he said advertisers don’t want to see a publication damaged by the advertising. ‘A successful parasite doesn’t kill its host,’ he quipped.

It was about creating interesting content, he said ‘whether it comes from an editor or an advertiser’ “When those things [editorial and advertising] are parallel it magnifies and develops our message,” he said.

Dove is the Unilever brand which is most advertised in magazines, and a product which is an example of a cross-media promotion: online, in magazines and on television.

In the previous session, Maurice Lévy, chairman and CEO of the Publicis Groupe, spoke of the world ‘the ad agencies have to live in now, where a couple of words on a search engine page is sometimes considered by our client as more effective than a wonderful TV spot.’

Newspapers and magazines could not expect to retain their share in the advertising market, despite analysts’ more optimistic predictions for 2011, he said.

“We have to change and we do change each day. You have to adapt yourself to this new world,” he said.

“It’s not yet time for obituaries,” he claimed. “I’m a little bit shocked when I see print media forever discussing their own death,”

“Please always remember the small guy in the digital world – Bill Gates. He repeated loud and clear ‘content is king’ (…) and you [the magazine industry] own it.'”

“Would you go as often on the internet, if you could not find newspapers and your favourite magazines online?” he asked. “I don’t think print media is dead, quite the contrary,” Lévy added.

“Think what semantic can do when combined with marketing. Now is time to innovate.”

“You have to look at this as an opportunity to leverage new opportunities with the strength of your brand and your audiences,” he said.

Live streaming from Norwegian journalism event

There’s a live video from the Free Media conference at the Norwegian Institute of Journalism in Fredrikstad today, courtesy of Journalisten.no.

You can’t rewind the video but you could opt in at the points you want to (Norwegian time is one hour ahead UK time).

Here’s the programme:

Thursday November 6

10.00
Welcome: Trine Østlyngen, director, The Norwegian Institute of Journalism
Opening remarks: Håkon Gulbrandsen, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

10.15
Strengthening media in the developing world – what does it take to ensure access for people living in poverty? Stephen King, director, BBC World Service Trust

11.15
The Muhammad Cartoons – an imagined clash of civilizations?
Opening remarks: Why I published – and how do I reflect upon my decision today? Flemming Rose, cultural editor, Jyllands-Posten
Panel discussion The caricatures as seen by the press around the world. Presentation of the new anthology summarizing the Muhammad cartoons controversy in several countries with Rose, Elisabeth Eide, researcher at Culcom, University of Oslo, and Risto Kunelius, professor and director of the journalism program at the University of Tampere, Finland
Moderator: Journalist and author Solveig Steien

14.00
Caucasus burning: The need for a free and independent media – and how to develop it? Danish SCOOP with support from International Media Support has started a program to help train journalists and develop media infrastructure in the Caucasus. The first national seminars were held last month in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. With Antti Kuusi, country coordinator, International Media Support; editor Boris Navasardian, Yerevan Press Club; and former Russia-correspondent Arne Egil Tønset, Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, who recently returned from a journey in the region. Moderator: Aage Borchgrevink , writer and advisor at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee

16.00
A Cameroonian journalist in exile: Philip Njaru and Jan Gunnar Furuly, SKUP/GIJC

Friday November 7

09.00
A thousand words – the camera as a tool. Well-known Iranian photographer Reza presents his “100 photos for press freedom”

09.45
Safety for journalists. A global overview. Sarah de Jong, Deputy Director and Project Manager  INSI (International News Safety Institute).

10.30
Conflict-ridden Colombia: The role of the media
A journalist’s perspective: From death threats to a life in exile – reflections from Maria Cristina Caballero
Followed by a panel discussion where Jan Egeland, former UN Under-secretary general and the secretary general’s special adviser on Colombia, and NRK-journalist Sigrun Slapgard, will join. Moderator: Journalist and former Latin-America- correspondentHaakon Børde

11.30
Closing speech: Former presidential candidate and FARC-hostage Ingrid Betancourt

Velocix launches free multimedia content delivery systerm

A digital delivery service for sites looking to host video, music or games online has been launched today with the creators claiming its as the first free service of its king.

The Velocix Accelerator delivery service provides can support the same media as current systems costing around £5,000 per year, the firm claims.

“Velocix is committed to disrupting the traditional CDN [Content Delivery Network] marketplace with breakthrough delivery performance, economics and control,” said Phill Robinson, CEO at Velocix.

The new offering includes a 500GB per month delivery allowance for file download and video streaming and is already being used by sites Fifzine and Uploaded.TV.