Tag Archives: Media Guardian

The Guardian Awards for Digital Innovation open for entries

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The Guardian has today (Monday, 24 October) launched its re-branded award scheme, with a focus of creative uses of technology.

The 2012 Guardian Awards for Digital Innovation has new categories including ‘best new website’, ‘tech guru of the year’ and the ‘best new app’.

Called the 2012 Megas, the scheme has adapted “to celebrate and recognise creative achievements and inspiring entrepreneurial spirit within the field of technology”, the Guardian said in a release.

The announcement said:

The 2012 Guardian Awards for Digital Innovation, which began in 2008 as the MediaGuardian Innovation Awards, will focus on cutting-edge digital accomplishments, in line with Guardian News & Media’s digital-first strategy, announced earlier this year. For the first time, one of the winners will get the rare opportunity to guest-edit the Guardian’s MediaGuardian website for a day.

Chair of the judging panel Dan Sabbagh, Guardian News & Media’s head of media & technology, said in the release:

These awards have championed a variety of digital innovations since 2008. Our past winners are testament to the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of the UK’s digital scene, and with more free-to-enter categories than ever before, I’m looking forward to hearing about the wide range of inspiring projects that are out there. Offering one winner the opportunity to guest edit the MediaGuardian website is a new move for us, and I’m sure this will result in some fascinating issues being covered on our website once the winners are announced next year.

The judging panel for the awards includes Wired editor-at-large Ben Hammersley and TV presenter Aleks Krotoski.

The closing date for applications is 5pm on Friday, 20 January. The winners will be announced in March 2012 at a presentation ceremony in London.

The new categories are:

Free to enter

  • Tech guru of the year (sponsored by Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network)
  • Young innovator of the year (sponsored by Wired)
  • Best startup business (sponsored by Taylor Wessing)
  • Best startup leader / CEO

£200 per entry

  • Best new website
  • Best new app
  • Best digital campaign – communications, marketing & PR
  • Best use of technology for social change

There is more information at Guardian.co.uk/megas, including a list of previous winners.

MediaGuardian: Channel 5 plans revamp of news programmes

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Channel 5 owner Richard Desmond is planning a revamp of the channel’s news bulletins, which could include ending its current contract with Sky News, the Guardian reported last night.

According to the article Desmond, also owner of the Daily Express, wants “greater personal control over the Channel 5 News bulletins” and has asked several other news producers to work on ideas for the channel’s news output.

Over the last few weeks executives at Desmond’s Northern & Shell have asked ITV News producer ITN, Question Time maker Mentorn, and US news channel CNN to draw up alternatives to the Sky-produced service.

Sky has also been asked to submit ideas, but the Rupert Murdoch-controlled satellite broadcaster is not thought likely to retain the contract.

MediaGuardian: Alan Rusbridger resigns from PCC code committee

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Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, has resigned from the Press Complaint Commission’s code committee, MediaGuardian reports.

His decision follows the PCC’s criticism of the way the Guardian had handled new allegations about past phone hacking at News of the World.

The PCC last week said it had found no new evidence further to its 2007 enquiry, a report which the Guardian, reporter Nick Davies and the Media Standards Trust strongly challenged.

On Sunday, the self-regulatory body’s chair Lady Peta Buscombe, cited police lawyers’ claims that a Metropolitan Police detective inspector had been ‘wrongly quoted’ in phone hacking evidence given to the House of Commons.

In response, the lawyer who gave the oral evidence, Mark Lewis, called for Buscombe’s resignation.

Full story at this link…

Could the Monday MediaGuardian section go online-only?

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The Guardian is considering making its Monday media section online-only, according to its sports columnist Martin Kelner, speaking to Phil Williams on Simon Mayo’s BBC Radio 5 Live show on Wednesday.

In a discussion about pay walls and micro-payments, Kelner said that the Guardian is ‘looking at the Media being an online section, as opposed to being with the newspaper’.

The Financial Times’ managing editor, Dan Bogler suggested that while newspapers like the Times or Guardian might not be able to charge for general news, or the front pages, they might be able to charge for niche areas, something he knows they are thinking about.

“The Guardian is big on media, is big on public sector jobs, if they bundled that content both print and online and charged for it,  I bet you they could. They might not be able to charge for everything they have but they could charge for certain parts,” said Bogler.

“Yeah well, definitely, Dan’s right – clearly he’s got the inside track on this,” Kelner said.

“The Guardian is looking at the Media being an online section as opposed to being with the newspaper and certainly that is one of the niches the Guardian could charge for.”

MediaGuardian recently celebrated its 25th birthday in print and is read by 525,000 readers every week, according to its advertising information; online it attracts 950,000+ unique users per month.

paidContent:UK reported in June that the Thursday tech supplement could be merged with the media section, or go online only. At that time, a spokesperson from Guardian News & Media (GNM) said they were considering merging the technology section with Monday’s media section – in print.

Speaking at the World Magazine Congress in May, GMG CEO Carolyn McCall, suggested that Guardian Media might be one of the areas they charge for in the future.

But more recently, as plans for the ‘Guardian Club’ emerged, the paper’s director of digital content, Emily Bell argued that a pay wall was not under consideration. “We are not contemplating a pay wall, nor as far as I’m concerned would we ever,” Bell told Liberal Conspiracy in August.

Update:

A Guardian spokesperson has said no such plans are being considered:

“Monday’s Media Guardian is a must read for everyone in the industry. It is highly valued editorially and commercially – we have no plans to transfer it to online only.”

MediaGuardian: Manchester Evening News weekly offices to go – 150 jobs axed

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“MEN Media, the publisher of the Manchester Evening News and 22 weeklies based in the north west, is closing all editorial offices of its weekly newspapers and axing 150 jobs,” reports MediaGuardian.

Production of the group’s weekly newspapers will be centralised in the MEN offices in Scott Place in central Manchester, the report continues.

Full story at this link…

Growing effect of online advertising in US, OPA study suggests

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Online advertising is going to overtake radio in the advertising market, MediaGuardian reported today.

Richard Wray’s article stated that while Carat – part of the Aegis marketing empire – had reduced its forecasts for the global advertising markets for 2008/9, it also said online advertising will continue to grow, overtaking radio as the third most popular advertising medium after TV and newspapers and magazines.

MediaGuardian’s report is interesting to look at in the light of statistics made available last week by the Online Publishers Association (OPA).

The US-based figures suggest that ‘consumers on all three types of local media sites – newspapers, television stations and magazines – are more likely to take action after viewing a local advert than visitors on all other local content sites’.

As part of the OPA study, JupiterResearch surveyed 2,069 US online consumers ‘who qualified as Local Online Content Users, by currently using online yellow pages, newspaper, TV, magazine, city guides, user review sites, portals or classifieds for local information.’

Here’s the breakdown:

Per cent of consumers taking action after viewing local adverts

  • Local Newspaper Site: 46%
  • Local Television Site: 44%
  • Local Magazine Site: 42%
  • User Review Site: 39%
  • Portal: 37%

Click here to view the full report and follow this link for the press release.