Tag Archives: raymond snoddy

Peston: Ofcom has recommended BSkyB bid go to competition commission, that is a fact

BBC business editor Robert Peston has insisted that claims he made earlier today about a recommendation from Ofcom to put News Corp’s BSkyB bid to the Competition Commission is not just speculation.

Update 12:59: I slightly regret the way I wrote this post, because some of you seem to think this is speculation.

It isn’t speculation.

What I am saying is very simple: Ofcom has recommended that there should be a full Competition Commission enquiry into News Corporation’s plan to buy all of British Sky Broadcasting.

That is a fact.

The report by Ofcom has not yet been made public, with the regulator and Department for Culture Media and Sport telling Journalism.co.uk recently that they could not comment on the contents of the report until culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, who has responsibility for the decision, has made an announcement.

Jeremy Hunt discussed the bid in an debate at the LSE with Raymond Snoddy last night but refused to comment in any detail on the decision making process.

In a separate meeting last night, journalists held a campaign meeting at the Houses of Parliament where Lord Razzall said “all hell would break loose” if Hunt were to ignore a recommendation by Ofcom to refer the bid to the Competition Commission.

#soe10: Society of Editors conference looks on the bright side of life

John Mair is a senior lecturer in broadcast journalism at Coventry University. He reports from the Society of Editors conference in Glasgow, which finished this morning.

Britain’s top newspaper editors were smiling, in public at least, as they met for the annual Society of Editors conference in Glasgow under the slogan ‘Have we got good news for you’. Circulations may be falling, print products hemorrhaging readers and advertising, but the local and national editors here were not going to be downcast and they heard from a succession of speakers inviting them to be positive.

Russian oligarch and Independent and Evening Standard owner Alexander Lebedev said in his opening lecture that he was proud of the two papers (and the new baby paper, i) that he owned in Britain and would continue to invest in exposing corruption. “Investigative journalism is something I want to invest in more.” he said in closing.

Jim Chisholm, CEO of the National Readership Survey, and Stewart Purvis, former partner responsible for content regulation and standards at Ofcom and now at City University, kept up the positive mood with their rosy views on readership data and the potential of youview to transform TV viewing and open the way to local television.

Media commentator Raymond Snoddy chaired a session called ’It ain’t dead and we’re fixing it’. Two young editors from the North East of England, Darren Thwaites of the Teesside Evening Gazette and Joy Yates of the Hartlepool Mail, continued in the same bright vein, showing how by campaigning and getting closer to their communities they were able to arrest some of the decline in sales of their papers.

It was left to veteran editor Derek Tucker of the Aberdeen Press and journal, who announced his retirement after 12 years in the editorial chair last week, to bring the first note of negativity with what he admitted were “Jurassic views” on the digital future and an astonishing attack on university journalism courses and the students who came out of them: “Very few possess the street cunning and inquisitiveness that is the hallmark of good journalists, and it often appears that English is a second language.”

That generated much comment from the journalism educators (“well meaning amateurs”, Tucker called them) in the audience.

It’s not known how long the Monty Python ‘Always look on the bright side’ theme can be kept up in view of the continuing crisis in the media industries.

#soe09: What are the revenue opportunities for newspapers – and what are the ‘donkeys’?

Concluding the session on future revenue for newspapers at today’s Society of Editors conference (including a suggestion of in-house PR agencies at newspapers), panel chair and media commentator Raymond Snoddy asked the speakers to name one future opportunity and one ‘donkey’ that should be given up.

Neil Benson, editorial director of Trinity Mirror Regionals
Keep: Video
“Video is a massive growth area that appeals to a spread of ages.”

Kill: Paid-for model for general news content

Morgan Holt, director of HUGE
Keep: Audience analysis and the link economy.
“Keep chasing your audience. Get very close to them and let them know you’re close to them; and make sure that everything you create is linkable to.”

Kill: Video
“It’s too expensive.”

Francois Pierre Nel, UCLAN
Keep: Valuable existing services
“We need to consider what value we provide to all our customers.”

Kill: DIY mentality
“We need to let go of the idea that we have to do it all ourselves and we need to look at new partnerships.”