Thursday 12 September 2013, PM
BBC ex-chair says NAO more interested in headlines than value for money - Media - theguardian.com
Bland also said the corporation should be regulated by an outside body such as Ofcom, instead of the BBC Trust, which is under fire. The idea that the BBC should be looked at in the same way as departments of state does not fill me with enormous enthusiasm. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. - theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com
Burns and Bland back BBC regulation change - News - Broadcast
Channel 4 chairman Terry Burns and former chair of the BBC board of governors, Christopher Bland, have suggested that a single board, plus Ofcom, is the best method for regulating the BBC. Speaking on a hastily organised panel session at the RTS Cambridge Convention following Mondays PAC hearing, the pair suggested that a unitary board structure, with input from the TV regulator, addressed the issue of the BBC Trust having to act as both regulator and cheerleader. - broadcastnow.co.uk
www.broadcastnow.co.uk
Ofcom - Request to change frequency of Herefordshire Worcestershire local DAB multiplex: Statement
These statutory provisions require Ofcom to consult on any such requests before it makes a decision, and so a public consultation was held between 13 August and 10 September. As MuxCo's proposal to change the frequency of the local radio multiplex service would have no impact on the range of local digital sound programme services proposed to be available in the Herefordshire Worcestershire area, Ofcom was satisfied that this statutory criterion had been met. Provided the request meets the terms of the statute, the decision whether or not to agree to the request is at Ofcom's discretion. - stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk
stakeholders.ofcom.org.ukNews - SES.com
The company provides satellite communications services to broadcasters, content and internet service providers, mobile and fixed network operators and business and governmental organisations worldwide. The culturally diverse regional teams of SES are located around the globe and work closely with customers to meet their specific satellite bandwidth and service requirements. - ses.com
www.ses.com
Ariel - India staff get three month pay ultimatum
12 September 2013 Last updated at 1520 BBC India staff have been given three months to accept a new pay offer before funds are redirected elsewhere. Staff in the Delhi bureau - who are employees of either Global News or Newsgathering - have already rejected the staggered rise which would see a 5 increase for the lowest paid, 3 for those on around 20,000 and no rise for those earning the equivalent of 31,000 or above. They argue that the proposal fails to take into account the rising cost of living in India where there's been 'double digit inflation' since 2010. - bbc.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk
U.K.s Channel 5 Committed to U.S. Dramas, Owner Says - The Hollywood Reporter
U.S. broadcast networks have in recent years started receiving such fees from cable and satellite TV operators, giving them a new revenue stream that mirrors the carriage fees cable networks receive. However, in the U.K., business models have been different. The BBC, for example, is estimated to pay about 8 million 5 million per year to BSkyB. - hollywoodreporter.com
www.hollywoodreporter.comDavid Abraham RTS Speech, Cambridge 2013 - Channel 4 - Info - Press
Opening remarks Id like to welcome you all to the conference and set the scene for this opening session and for the conference as a whole. Its always a challenge to try and encapsulate discussions on behalf of an entire industry into a coherent 48 hour event especially when one considers the big beasts that have performed this role and the ideological battles that have played out here over the years. The first RTS Cambridge I ever went to was the day after 9/11. - channel4.com
www.channel4.comThursday 12 September 2013, AM
BBC governance review is overdue - but welcome - Media - theguardian.com
In truth, there is no point in creating yet another board to oversee the BBC's management executive. Give that job to Ofcom and be done with it. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.com
BBC News - BBC has had annus horribilis, says culture secretary
She wants the public spending watchdog to have greater access to the BBC. The BBC has announced a review of its structure to provide better oversight of the way the licence fee is spent. 'Insufficient independence' Ms Miller's speech to an audience of industry insiders in Cambridge comes after a difficult week for the BBC. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukMaria Miller's speech to the RTS Television Convention – full text - Media - theguardian.com
Having worked in the advertising industry for 20 years, I couldn't agree more He was a towering figure in broadcasting and one who will be sorely missed by many people here today. Of course Sir David was one of the first people to become famous through his appearances on television. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comChannel 5 owner warns of regulation threat to public service broadcasters - Media - theguardian.com
Desmond will also point to a historical regulation that allows non-PSB channels to air more minutes of advertising per hour. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. To get the latest media news on your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comWednesday 11 September 2013, PM
Media: TV Writers; BBC Governance
downloads.bbc.co.ukBBC payouts row: HR director faces calls to quit over 'sweetener' allegation - Media - theguardian.com
Adams previously issued a correction to her claim that she could not recall a key memo proposing a controversial 1m payout to the BBC's former deputy director general, Mark Byford. He declined, but said he was happy to share it with the comptroller and auditor general of the National Audit Office, Amyas Morse, who also attended the committee meeting. Shortly afterwards Morse told the committee he had seen the email and suggested Adams be allowed to view it and respond after the hearing. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comTiVo eyes the cloud with premiere of network PVR - Tech Culture - CNET News
TiVo has announced a new, cloud-based television offering that could strengthen its relationships with cable and satellite providers. Dubbed the TiVo network PVR personal video recorder, the new cloud-based service is only in prototype phase at this point, the company noted Wednesday. However, the cloud-based service, which will be shown off for the first time at the International Broadcasting Conference in Amsterdam starting Thursday, may find its way into homes at some point in the future. - news.cnet.com
news.cnet.comWednesday 11 September 2013, AM
High roller Michael Grade knows the value of money - Media Monkey - Media - theguardian.com
Michael Grade a man who knows something about being the son of a rich family. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comDavid Attenborough: big BBC salaries are huge embarrassment - Television radio - The Guardian
Attenborough spoke out in the wake of the latest controversy around executive pay at the BBC, where 60m was paid to outgoing executives over an eight-year period, including more than 1m to the former deputy director general Mark Byford. The BBC is in my view one of the most important strands in the cultural life of this country and it is going through a bad patch. Ideally they would like the BBC to be exterminated but they realise that would never happen, or should not happen. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comTuesday 10 September 2013, PM
Apple TV a no-show, in any respect, at iPhone event - Internet Media - CNET News
Apple held an event at its Cupertino, Calif., home base Tuesday. Headlining the presentation was its introduction of a new budget smartphone, the iPhone 5C, and its new flagship iPhone 5S, as it seeks to attract more customers and revitalize interest in its devices. Dueling reports last week first stoked anticipation that Apple had a new set-top box on deck for Tuesday's event after long neglecting the device in terms of any significant refresh. - news.cnet.comnews.cnet.comNextRadio - a good FM radio app
There's little sense using bandwidth and battery to pick up the same station that you can get via FM radio, after all. The problem is, however, that FM apps on mobile phones aren't very good. Typically, they are bundled with the phone, and carry little extra features. - mediauk.comwww.mediauk.comTuesday 10 September 2013, AM
BBC's Less Than Magnificent Seven under fire from MPs - Media - The Guardian
Photograph PA Like most people in their late 60s, Chris Patten is a bit past his best-before date. Fleet St was also out in force to witness the fall of the Tory type they most hate liberal, self-confident, pro-European and elitist, as the tabloids call their critics. Needless to say they were all disappointed by their own hopes and predictions. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.com
BBC gets the thumbs down from national newspapers - Media - theguardian.com
A radio interviewer asked me yesterday whether the BBC's reputation would be harmed by the golden payoffs scandal. The news headlines - the ones that catch readers' eyes, if not their full attention - are uniformly negative. True, the trustees were not necessarily apprised of every extra payment that was made. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.com
House bill aims to prevent broadcast TV blackouts - The Hill's Hillicon Valley
The discussion draft is a response to the month-long blackout of CBS stations for millions of Time Warner Cable customers. A satellite television law is set to expire at the end of next year, and it's possible that re-authorization legislation could include other changes to video regulations. Eshoo's proposal won praise from cable providers but drew the ire of the broadcasting industry. - thehill.com
thehill.comMonday 09 September 2013, PM
BBC's 'squabbling' executives slammed by MPs amid payoffs scandal - Media - The Guardian
- theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comLetters: Payoff for the BBC is a change in management structure - Media - The Guardian
Former BBC director general Mark Thompson leaves the public accounts committee hearing into payoffs to former colleagues. They were made not from profits but from the television licence fees of individual households. It took 6,500 licence fees a small town to cover just one of these severance payments. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.com
BBC Trust is “broken†say MPs - News - Broadcast
It takes just 2 minutes and offers full, instant access to the Broadcast website along with a copy of the magazine delivered every week. - broadcastnow.co.ukwww.broadcastnow.co.uk
Ariel - Thompson stands by Byford pay-off
The former director general believed it represented 'value for money' for the BBC, which paid the ex-deputy DG 12 months' salary and 12 months' pay in lieu of notice. He said the BBC wanted Byford to remain in post during a period of 'immense operational challenges' and that the extra payment was required, in his judgement, to keep him 'fully focused' on the task and 'not worrying about head hunters'. 'I believe I made sure the BBC Trust was fully informed in advance about these settlements,' he told the committee. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukBBC payoffs saga grossly unedifying, says Margaret Hodge - Media - theguardian.com
- theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comBBC payoff row: Mark Thompson and Lord Patten face MPs - live - Media - theguardian.com
Ahead of the hearing at 3.15pm, here is a useful primer on the key issues at play for Thompson and Patten. The BBC Trust has claimed it was unaware of key elements of the two high-profile payments to Byford and Baylay and specifically that they involved payments in lieu of notice and a delay in the serving of notice. Patten and Fry told the PAC hearing that, had they known that the Byford payment was greater than his contractual entitlement, they would have acted. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.com
Sony announces game-changing PlayStation Vita TV
Basically, the device turned mobile games into home console games. At this point, I will have to roll dice to decide which one to watch Netflix on. However, the true killer feature of this 100 box is PlayStation 4 remote play. - betanews.com
betanews.comBBC payoff row: how the drama has unfolded - Media - theguardian.com
Last week, the NAO revealed that the BBC paid out a total of 2.9m to former bosses that went beyond contractual entitlement between 2006 and 2012. The 1m severance deal handed to Byford has long been the corporation's most contentious payout. Baylay's departure too was planned in September and October 2010, alongside that of Byford, before she left the corporation in November that year. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comBBC Severance Dispute Goes to Parliamentary Panel - NYTimes.com
In July, Mr. Patten had expressed surprise at the details of key severance payments, which were larger than contractually mandated, according to the auditors, while Mr. Thompson insists that the trust was fully informed and raised no objections. One of the documents Mr. Thompson has presented is a briefing memo prepared for Mr. Patten explaining the payments, which were approved before Mr. Patten became chairman of the trust. The auditors found that of 150 senior executives who left in the three years ending December 2012, which cost the corporation 25 million pounds, the BBC paid more salary in lieu of notice than contractually mandated in 22 cases, for an extra cost of 1.4 million pounds. - nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/bbc-director-general-tony-hall-defends-bbc-policy-on-payoffs-8804585.ht
BBC director general Tony Hall says the corporation has a grip on the money it gets from licence-fee payers ahead of a parliamentary hearing examining hefty pay-offs given to senior staff. Mr Byford departed the BBC with a total payout of 949,000. - independent.co.uk
www.independent.co.ukMonday 09 September 2013, AM
Mark Thompson vs Lord Patten - US press keeps a watchful eye - Media - theguardian.com
Mark Thompson's position as chief executive of the New York Times makes him a high-profile media figure in the United States. Ahead of Thompson's crucial appearance before the commons public accounts committee, most of the US media carried only news agency copy, without comment. US papers that ran stories from their London-based correspondents were studiedly neutral. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comhttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/ian-burrell-british-tv-looks-into-the-future-and-gets-ready-to-bang-its
The corporation can expect a thrashing more violent than even the most energetic of the Channel 5 owners drum solos. The RTS convention has set itself the ambitious target of trying to predict what will happen to the medium we now call television over the coming decade. The exercise is all the more interesting for having been attempted in 2003 when Greg Dyke was in the chair. - independent.co.ukwww.independent.co.ukSunday 08 September 2013, PM
UKTV shrugs off its reliance on Dave and repeats and tries to lure the young - Media - The Guardian
More than a one-trick pony UKTV boasts the award-winning magician Dynamo. Darren Childs, chief executive of UKTV for the past three years, highlights a surge in programming investment, a shift to a part-pay, part-free channel strategy, and a leap in viewing numbers thanks in part to a street magician called Dynamo. That it is succeeding, he says, can be seen in the numbers which UKTV has revealed in full for the first time. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comIn fight with broadcasters, Aereo has time on its side: Supreme Court ruling unlikely before 2015 Tech News an
The California hearing was just the latest twist in a complex series of cases that many lawyers predict could land before the Supreme Court and redefine the rules for TV. By the time that happens, however, rapidly expanding Aereo or some other streaming service may have already disrupted the current business model for television. Aereo says the service does not violate copyright law because the individual antennas result in a private, not a public, transmission. - gigaom.com
gigaom.comBBC payoffs: the system was broke - Media - The Observer
Maybe Chris Patten's role as chairman of the BBC Trust lies in pawn. The clash of evidence between the two over who knew about and who authorised sundry whopping payoffs to departing BBC executives is stark, crucial and will surely end in court if the PAC scratches its head over so much vitriolic detail. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.comSaturday 07 September 2013, AM
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/opinion/bbc-severance-row-corporations-big-beasts-lord-patten-and-mark-thompson-
At the heart of the latest row over pay-offs is the relationship between Lord Patten and the former Director-General. The Trust has dismissed Thompsons analysis in a witness statement as a bizarre document. Thompson had been planning to move on but Lord Patten set the process in motion with an interview in The Times in January 2012 in which he revealed that headhunters had been appointed to find a replacement. - independent.co.ukwww.independent.co.uk
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/lord-hall-the-directorgeneral-who-pledged-to-clean-up-bbc-told-to-retur
It has emerged that Lord Hall, who has vowed to crackdown on a culture of excessive pay-offs at the corporation, was given the bonus payment when he left his 204,000-a-year job as BBC head of current affairs in 2001. They asked why he did not disclose the payment when he was grilled during a session on BBC pay-offs in July. Questioned over the 25m which was paid to 150 outgoing executives, including 2m on top of contractual obligations, Lord Hall told MPs Wed lost the plot. - independent.co.ukwww.independent.co.uk
Apple Won't Change Apple TV Box Will Upgrade Software Gabe Rivera - Peter Kafka - Media - AllThingsD
There are very, very good odds youre going to hear about new iPhones at Apples event next Tuesday. Despite speculation about new Apple TV hardware on the way, Apple wont be unveiling any new boxes next week, according to people familiar with the companys plans. That said, the company will be tweaking the software inside its Web TV box. - allthingsd.com
allthingsd.com
Radio Today - New DAB transmitters turned on in Wales
The official switch-on of three new DAB digital radio transmitters has taken place in Llanelli this evening, at an event in Llanelli. Over 1,000 km of roads will also get DAB coverage for the first time. Together with this launch, 900,000 listeners in Wales can now get national stations on DAB for the first time. - radiotoday.co.uk
radiotoday.co.uk
BBC humanities graduates 'dumbing down science' - Telegraph
As a result science presenters are told to avoid using any technical terms for fear of alienating people, while arts presenters can reference relatively obscure cultural figures without any further explanation, she said. - telegraph.co.uk
www.telegraph.co.uk
BBC - Blogs - Internet blog - What's On BBC Red Button - 7-14 September
For sports fans, there's Diamond League athletics action and its over to Italy for Formula 1. For the first time you can watch all four Proms in the Park concerts live, and in full, online at www.bbc.co.uk/proms. Watch an extra special secret episode of Wolfblood only on the Red Button. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukFriday 06 September 2013, PM
Former BBC chairman contradicts Thompson in £1m payout row - Media - The Guardian
Witnesses including Thompson and Patten will be interrogated, while sitting next to each other, as a way of flushing out the truth. The NAO, which triggered the current row with its initial report, revealed this week in a supplementary note that 2.9m in payments by the broadcaster between 2006 and 2012 went beyond contractual entitlement. Five current members of the BBC Trust broke cover to distance themselves from Thompson's claims that they were involved in the Byford payment. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.com
Thompson on Savile: 'I have told the truth' - Channel 4 News
- channel4.comwww.channel4.comBBC ordered to disclose names and details of payoffs to 150 managers - Media - theguardian.com
The BBC has been ordered to disclose details of payments to 150 managers while Mark Thompson was director general. The Commons public accounts committee is to invoke the power of a standing order to force the broadcaster to release information about 150 redundancy payments to senior managers between 2010 and 2012. Citing data protection issues, the BBC has previously fought attempts to divulge the names, but has now written to the former managers alerting them that the nature of their severance arrangements may now be made public. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.com
Philips 9000 Series 4k Ultra HDTV: Hands-on pictures - Recombu
The 65-inch 65PFL9708 in the company's flagship 9000 Series proved mightily impressive in our hands-on demo. That will only become relevant when and if a new high capacity Blu-ray format and player is decided upon. In October Philips will also put on sale the 84-inch 84PFL9708 13,000, latter on sale in a month. - recombu.com
recombu.com
MuxCo.com Mid and West Wales
The Mid West Wales local multiplex launched on 30th August 2013. It currently carries the following services If there are any stations that you listen to at the moment on analogue radio that you would like to hear on DAB, we suggest that you contact those stations directly, encouraging them to join the multiplex. We do, however, currently have room for additional stations to join the multiplex. - muxco.com
www.muxco.com
MuxCo.com Mid WestWalesLaunch
Comments must remain on topic to the blog post, otherwise they will be removed. Firm launch dates will be announced in blog posts and referenced on the relevant multiplex section, they will be updated there as soon as we know. Name required Mail will not be published required Website Notify me of follow-up comments by email. - muxco.comwww.muxco.com
Chris Patten: from 'double whammy' to 'Fat Pang' - Channel 4 News
It is not the first time Lord Patten has been involved in a scrap and it will not be the last. He and Lady Thatcher were on opposite sides of the wet/dry divide in the party, with Chris Patten a devout wet who questioned the monetarist direction of the government. This did not stop him becoming environment secretary in 1989, the year before Lady Thatcher was forced out. - channel4.comwww.channel4.comBBC director general under pressure over 'outrageous' pension payment - Media - The Guardian
Hall was given 24,500 of public money in extra contributions on top of the BBC's contractual obligations when he resigned from the corporation to become Royal Opera House chief executive in 2001. MPs on the public accounts committee PAC, to whom Hall gave evidence on executive payoffs, have called for the money to be repaid and asked why he did not mention it when he appeared before parliament in July. It follows widespread condemnation of the corporation for making severance payments costing taxpayers 2m more than contractual obligations. - theguardian.comwww.theguardian.compick a page