pr-media-blog.co.uk

With the furore of press coverage the story achieved, it was hard to miss the fact that some of the BBC’s “top talent” are facing drastic pay cuts. It was reported that a gathering of stars were invited to a less than extravagant affair held at Television Centre to be told that anyone earning over £100,000 a year would face a massive pay cut, with some deals being halved.

Brucie is now contemplating his future as host on Strictly Come Dancing as his considerable £900,000 earnings could be slashed to a mere £500,000.

Terry Wogan, who’s Radio 2 breakfast show Wake up to Wogan averages 7.8 million listeners a week, is facing a similar cut, from £800,000 to £500,000.

Other personalities who may face a drop in salary when their contracts come up for renewal include Chris Moyles, Jeremy Clarkson and Jonathan Ross.

In the current economic climate it comes as no surprise that the BBC is making “efficiency savings” and talent fees are not excluded from the economic pressures.

It’s also no secret that ITV and Channel 4 are struggling in these hard economic times, but throw the licence fee - that’s public money - into the melting pot and it becomes a rather more interesting issue.

As the Telegraph’s Neil Midgley writes; “the PR line from the BBC is clear. Don’t take the licence fee away from us.”

With the amount of press coverage this “top talent” gathering attracted, it soon became clear that the BBC’s PR machine has been working particularly hard since the report by the House of Commons public accounts select committee which criticised the corporation’s reluctance to open its books to public scrutiny, not to mention separate talks of freezing the licence fee.

Clearly the BBC must be seen to be doing all it can to make savings and not waste public money on hugely inflated salaries and what better way to tell the world that’s what it’s doing than at the expense, quite literally, of its biggest, news generating stars.

With this in mind, one can’t help question whether the recent pay cuts were more of a shrewd PR move than a strategic business decision, as it seems the corporation’s freelance production staff (who can command £1,000 a week or more) have, for the moment, been left unscathed.

Last week the Times suggested that BBC insiders hoped that a high-profile name would walk out in a row over pay, to allow the corporation to say that it is refusing to meet overpriced salary demands.  But that doesn’t seem likely. No big stars have publicly complained which is now rather incidental as the headlines have already been grabbed.

Iranians protesting at the outcome of the recent election have been mobilising through social networks like twitter and Facebook. 

In addition to challenging the ’surprising’ results of the presidential election, social networks are being used to organise protests and direct action.   Moreover opponent of the current regime, who claim the election was rigged, have been taking on one of the world’s largest media organisations via twitter.

Whilst organisations like the BBC and New York Times were covering the events as they unfolded, CNN was singled out by twitter users inside Iran and around the world for failing to give sufficient prominence to the outrage at the reported election result emanating from inside the country.  Twitter users in their thousands started to use the hashtag #CNNfail in their messages to point out the limited CNN coverage.   In a direct response to the demands of web users the TV network increased its coverage of events and made the protests their lead story.  

The major news brands around the world remain our most trusted sources of news and comment but the social web is emerging as a critical provider of checks and balance.  

It’s the interview, and interviewee, from hell…

A Fox news presenter tries to get some sense (and a straight answer) out of Mayor Virg Bernaro of Lansing, Michigan, whose constituents are likely to be affected by General Motors’ production cutbacks.

Frankly, neither of them come out of this well. And never has a “thank you very much” for the interview sounded quite so hollow.

It’s rare I last as late as the BBC’s weekly, televised political shouting match,  Question Time. But the great DVD I was watching last night “borked” (teen speak for broken technology, kids), leaving me no option but to tune in.

And I’m glad I did, as the polar differences between being an effective spokesperson for your cause and looking like a weasel were placed in stark relief.

In the red corner, Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights organisation Liberty; and in the blue corner, Geoff Hoon, secretary of state for Transport.

The audience question focused on the Government’s insistence to the High Court that files about a terrorist suspect - who alleges torture by British and American agents - should remain secret because of national security.

Sure, it’s Chakrabarti’s brief to be indignant about these matters, but she was incandescent with rage. When in full flow, stabbing the air with her finger and trying (but failing) not to give Hoon a sideways glance of pure contempt, you wanted to go with her, right back to that High Court, and demand summary justice. Leaving aside the complexities of the case, it was clear who the audience was backing on this one.

Hoon - not the most charismatic of contemporary politicians - had the expression of a man looking into the abyss as he realised what he had to follow. And he made the mistake of describing his adversary’s monologue as “emotional”, which inadvertently emphasised his utter lack of emotion. To the audience, that says: “I can’t get emotional about torture”. Not great, as Obama is calling time on Guantanamo and all its associations with human rights abuses. OK, it’s not Hoon’s ministerial brief, but on Question Time he is the Government, and the image conveyed was icier than a country lane in Cornwall this week.

An unusual addition to the programme’s panel this week was the singer, Will Young. Not sure what the programme makers expected him to add (a degree in politics doesn’t automatically make you a spokesman for a generation), but Guardian blogger, Heidi Stephens, was thoroughly pleased with Will’s contribution. Call me a killjoy, but I’d rather he concentrated on singing. And even then…

.

Cadbury’s broke new ground with the drumming Gorilla, mixing TV advertising, viral and PR.  When you have a great marketing campaign like that there is client pressure and a real desire on the part of the protagonists to repeat the success.  It seldom works.  The follow up to ‘Gorilla’ was a case in point.  The runaway trucks racing on a runway to Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ was nice enough but no match for the simian skin beater.   

However Cadbury’s might just have made marketing lightning strike twice.  Launching on Channel 4 tonight is a 60 second film that is quirky enough to set tongues wagging and destined to be a YouTube must see.  Two siblings perform some serious eyebrow dance moves to a piece of eighties electronica called Don’t Stop The Rock by Freestyle. You need to see it really.

This time the muti-level marketing ducks are all lined up.  They’ve added some good PR lines - publishing a list of top ten famous eyebrows and renaming the second month in the calendar Fe-brow-ary.  They’ve even gone for a shade of branding in the ad by putting the sister in the film in a Cadbury’s trade mark purple dress.

There is a long list of people in the media spotlight whose misjudged comment has landed them in trouble.

The reporting of Gerald Ratner’s infamous throw-away line about his high street jewellery shops’ product range as “crap” did nothing for business, just as Network Rail justifying late-running trains because of the “wrong type of leaves” on the line invited nationwide ridicule.

Thinking before speaking to the media or - yet more preferable - anticipating questions and preparing honest and considered responses is essential to minimise the risk of trashing your reputation in public - or at least avoiding a distracting media feeding frenzy.

I can only assume this wasn’t what business minister, Baroness Vadera, did when speaking to ITV news yesterday about the state of the economy, in which she claimed to have seen “a few green shoots of recovery”. The Baroness is, reputedly, no intellectual slouch and maybe her comments were taken out of context but this metaphor couldn’t have been more ill-judged on a bad day for job losses. 

Her gaffe was a gift to the media - the BBC’s 10 o’clock news had it as lead story - not least because abuse of the “green shoots” analogy had previous form with Tory chancellor, Norman Lamont, in the early 90s.  And it gave the opposition a golden opportunity to say the Baroness was inhabiting “a parallel universe” at a critical time for the Government.

As the news showed last night, there are some signs of positive economic activity  despite the overall outlook appearing bleak. Maybe if Vadera had alluded to those while leavening her comments with some realism about the economy - and leaving the botanical imagery in the garden shed - it could have been just another balanced ministerial comment buried in copy, not front page news.

As a journalist, the desk would sometimes ask me to do “a colour piece”. That colour can be elusive, unless politicians make it easy for you.

The BBC launches a new satellite TV channel today for viewers in Iran.  BBC Persian TV which will be broadcast by satellite seven days a week, will rely heavily on bloggers and citizen journalists.  Iranian authorities refused permission to broadcast and produce from within the country so programmes will be made in London using the active blogging community in Iran for first hand source material. 

The Farsi language channel is part of the BBC World Service and funded by the UK Foreign Office to the tune of £15m ($22m).  It employs 140 staff.  Editorially it is entirely independent of government.

Sina Motalebi a director at Persian TV a graduate of Tehran University and a former blogger himself believes that Iran’s highly active blogging community will provide material they have filmed or recorded that gives a real picture of day to day life in the country ”we are not asking people to send pictures of police brutality or demonstrations, we want material about ordinary life in Iran.”

In addition to Iran, BBC Persian TV will be broadcast in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.  It will also be available in Britain, Dubai and of the Persian Gulf through satellite and cable.

Just to add to the pre-Christmas jobs misery, Channel 4 is axing 200 jobs across commissioning, new media and marketing in light of the fragile advertising market for 2009.

Meanwhile, new funding options for the broadcaster reported today could involve a joint venture with the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.

At the end of the day, broadcasting is business, and business stinks right now. But it’s ironic that “Walter” - one of the defining programmes from Channel 4 broadcast on its launch night in 1982 - is being revisited as a radio play, featuring the eponymous actor, Sir Ian McKellen. 

Described at the time by the London Evening Standard as “one of the most shocking films about mental illness ever shown on British TV”, it won a Royal Television Award and Bafta nomination for McKellen. As a teenage viewer accustomed to the blandness of much of public service television’s output, it was nothing short of brilliant and thrilling.

And it was also a “drawing a line in the sand” moment for television, where Channel 4 would show what daring TV could look like, as well as being intelligent and educational. It may have lost its way in the noughties,  and it’s debatable what Big Brother has added to the culture. But for every bunch of screaming, narcissistic housemates, there’s a Cutting Edge, Unreported World and The Sopranos.

So, tough times ahead for Channel 4 and let’s hope it pulls through as there’s nothing else quite like it.

A titanic struggle between new and old media is emerging in the battle for the Christmas number 1 single.   In one corner stands the mighty Simon Cowell, the man that holds Saturday night prime time television in the palm of his hand, in the other a motley crew of Facebook users and music aficionados.

Cowell, X-Factor godfather and impresario has decreed that this year the best selling single at Christmas will be a cover of Leonard Cohen’s climactic masterpiece Hallelujah.   With the power of millions of ITV Saturday night viewers behind him he has also pronounced that it will be sung by the X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke.  

Music lovers across the nation have decided that this song is too important to join the lyrical list lining the already chock-full pockets of Mr C.  It is a commonly held view that the definitive version of Hallelujah was recorded by the late Jeff Buckley and a Facebook group has sprung up called ‘Jeff Buckley for Xmas no 1′ .  The membership is growing by more than 10,000 a day. 

The people formerly known as the audience, who also had John Sargeant so cruelly snatched from the Strictly Come Dancing strut-off, are fighting back.  The downloads are at fever pitch at iTunes and the newly minted MP3 market at Amazon (use the former if you want to be counted for the official chart).   If they succeed in putting the Buckley version at the top of 2009’s Christmas chart they will have pulled of a victory in the manner of David’s over Goliath.

So, it’s over for another year. And what will a reputed 15 million TV viewers do on a Saturday night now the latest X Factor has been won?

In a supposedly Internet age, when commercial broadcasters are running scared from the all-powerful web, and an era of fragmented television, the viewing figures for the X Factor are staggering. Not that they are remotely close to the legendary audiences for Morecambe and Wise (28 million for the 1977 Christmas special, bless ‘em) or those for the 1970s Generation Game, but it’s still good going.

And despite the voice and indisputable talent of X Factor winner, Alexandra Burke, the programme isn’t remotely about music. The other acts that paraded the stage with the winner on Saturday night were crushingly average, despite the encouragement from the judges. If you want pop music, then watch Jools Holland’s Later or the BBC’s Electric Proms; the X Factor is a national shared experience about the drama of dreams coming true, or being dashed at the whim of Simon Cowell - not music.

Strictly Come Dancing has achieved similar mass appeal reinventing a very tired format from the annals of television history (when the requisite “glamour” was provided by newsreader, Angela Rippon) with a healthy dose of celebrity sex appeal, fabulous costumes and a “behind the scenes” look at the acts being human.

 Meanwhile, Internet only programmes are supposedly coming of age, attracting audiences of up to a million. But the difference with online content (BBC iPlayer aside) is that the audience is viewing it when it wants, not necessarily in a simultaneous expression of telly togetherness. With a million online views at best against X-Factor’s 15, Saturday nights seem - for now - safe for broadcasters. But how far away are we from families huddling around a screen watching the Internet?