A short set of questions arrived last week through email, as a result of my running Media UK, a media information website. Just in case it’s useful to anyone else, here were the answers I gave…

We are a group of year 11s from [a] Community College and we are completing a piece of coursework in which we have chosen to research the media. I am writing to enquire about your company and your opinion on controlling the media.

1. How do you feel about working with the media?

I’ve worked within the media for all my adult life, so I’m pretty comfortable with it.

“The media” is a big thing, including all kinds of things like radio and TV, respectable magazines like The Economist, tedious showbiz magazines like Heat or OK, and campaigning titles like Private Eye or, occasionally, The Guardian. Some of what the media does is pretty worthless; some of what it does is vital to a healthy democracy and its people.

2. Do you think the media is biased?

Broadcast media isn’t allowed follow a political line by law; but print media can be unashamedly biased.

I am not too concerned about media bias. I am concerned about media plurality: there are many people who mostly listen to Radio 4, watch BBC television and use the BBC News website instead of buying a newspaper: these people therefore get almost all their news from just one dominant source – the BBC. I don’t believe the BBC is biased, but it does have its own priority on what news it covers. I hope that people understand that it’s important to get news from multiple sources: that way, bias naturally disappears.

(Incidentally, if you watch Channel 5 and Sky, and listen to commercial radio, you’re similarly getting all your news from one source – that of Sky News.)

3. Do you think it’s right for the media to invade peoples personal privacy?

In certain circumstances, yes: where it’s in direct conflict with a job they’re doing, for example. If a politician is keen to promote state schools but secretly sends his own daughter to a private school, that’s a good example of hypocrisy in his private life that needs to be highlighted.

4. What did you think of the phone hacking scandal?

In most cases, it’s not the right way to get a story, and I was dismayed to read the apparent details.

However, if a story is in the public interest, journalists should get the evidence they need before publishing. Sometimes this may be via underhand methods. Some of the best and most important stories have been broken in this way.

5. Because of the phone hacking scandal do you think the newspapers will have tighter controls in the future?

Phone hacking is illegal. People who do it are breaking the law. There are already adequate controls in law against what happened. What went wrong in this case is that the police and the newspapers were apparently working together.

I hope that the press stays free; but that its behaviour is curbed by the public who should refuse to purchase newspapers who behave badly. The public has shown, repeatedly, that it continues to buy papers like the News of the World, even though it has the capacity to destroy peoples’ lives. In some sense, the NoW was simply doing its commercial duty to give the public what it wanted; and, in some ways, the public is not, entirely, blameless.

6. Do you think freedom of the press is more important than the right to privacy?

I don’t believe that anyone who has fought hard to elect themselves on their beliefs should be hidden from scrutiny; so, yes, the freedom of the press should be retained. However, I also don’t believe that it’s anyone’s business whether a showbiz star takes illegal substances or has a healthy attitude to his or her private relationships. So it’s probably more complicated than that.

I hope that helps. Let me know if we can make Media UK more helpful to your coursework, too.

When I started in radio, the only way to record audio was a large bulky reel-to-reel tape recorder, which I lugged from the studios to interviews in factories, pubs and hotels. The only way to edit audio was to deftly use a razor-blade, a chinagraph pencil and some splicing tape in large, purpose-built studios. The only way for listeners to hear to that audio was through a carefully-edited AM or FM broadcast; and the only way to listen was live. And for a listener who wished to take part, they could do so by writing a postcard, or calling from their home telephone.

In 2012, I can record audio, edit it and make it available directly from my mobile phone. On their computer or phone, listeners can listen whenever they like, wherever they are; and share audio every bit as technically good as our own.

Radio – and the media – has changed. Are we changing with it?

This is the subject of a talk I’m giving at Prix Europa’s The Radio Feature in the Digital Age on Thursday, in Leipzig, Germany.

Ah, 2012. What will it bring?

We know for sure it’ll bring cuts to BBC services: but we still don’t quite know what. Is the BBC going backwards in its radio ambitions? It helps, I think, to look back – not in terms of 2011, but rather earlier. And what environment better to do this than the new home of BBC Radio 5 live (above) in MediaCityUK, Salford, which – apart from having impressive, modern-looking offices bedecked in thought-wheels and flat-screen TVs, is also home, in the station’s coffee area, to the archives of the northern edition of the Radio Times.

So, back to Thursday March 18, 1971 – a near-typical day in a near-typical year just over 40 years ago.

In 1971, the BBC’s four radio channels (today they have ten) had remarkably similar schedules. BBC Radio 1 had names like Tony Blackburn, Johnnie Walker, Anne Nightingale and Terry Wogan: yet only started at 7.00am and closed down after Sounds of the 70s with Stuart Henry – “and storyteller champion Jack Duprée” – at 7.02pm.

BBC Radio 2 looks both consistent and alien: Pause for Thought is still there (now subsumed into Chris Evan’s Breakfast Show) as is Desmond Carrington, Big Band Sound (now Big Band Special), and, yes, The Organist Entertains.

But BBC Radio 2 was also the sports network for the BBC, and programming was interrupted for racing commentary from the Cheltenham Gold Cup as well as two installments of Sports Desk. And at “2.1″, the Radio Times’s precise way of billing a programme that started just after the 2.00pm news headlines, the Radio 2 audience were treated to Woman’s Hour. The programme contained a book (The March Hare), and an item interestingly entitled “Sex Education for want of a better term”, with guests Baroness Birk, Thornton Pearn, and Dr James Hemming. Also of note in the Radio 2 schedules was some odd-shaped dipping into Radio 1 (3.02 to 3.35pm, then again at 3.50pm to 4.15pm – surrounding the racing).

But it’s BBC Radio 4 which is the most interesting. Once more, lots of consistent names still on the network today. Today (subtitled “The world this morning”, interestingly, with Jack de Manio and John Timpson), Yesterday in Parliament, You and Yours (a piece on dentures today), The World at One, The Archers and PM.

But look closer: because Radio 4 is very different. 6.50am – 7.00am, just before “Today”, we’d get regional news and weather: and again at 7.50am. At 8.00am, there’s a section of Today called simply “The News”. Following that, “more of Today (including, in the Midlands and E Anglia, Regional Extra; and Today in the South and West introduced by Derek Jones)”. Local news and information was broadcast inside the main Radio 4 network – so called because it was a network in those days – in much the same way as I put forward in July last year. The local optouts pepper the output throughout the day.

Radio 4′s schedule, too, is full of schools programmes. 9.05 to 9.25′s taken up with “Religious Service for Primary Schools”, then after an interview with Beatles producer George Martin at 9.25am, we’re back into schools programmes until 10.15am; the Daily Service (two hymns, two passages from the Bible, both helpfully itemised); another one and a half hours of schools programmes till midday, and another hour at 2.00pm. How the network retained any listeners is beyond comprehension.

Finally, these schedules show that the interactiveness of radio has changed, too. In Radio 2′s schedule there’s a nice long panel explaining details of “Eric Robinson’s Competition” – the rules, the address and closing date. Eric Robinson’s Music Club was on-air between 9.15pm and 10.01pm – up for grabs were some record tokens. And on Radio 4, “Any Answers”, now a phone-in following the Saturday repeat of Friday night’s “Any Questions”, is on a Thursday night, called “A radio correspondence column in which listeners add their comments to views expressed in last Friday’s Any Questions”. The programme, produced in Bristol, lasted half an hour.

Was radio better in the early 1970s? Or was there simply nothing else on? Commercial radio was two years away; Radio Caroline was off-air and other pirates had been outlawed four years ealier; and BBC Local Radio was comparatively new, with 20 stations (now there are 40) on-air, most for less than a year.

Are there any ideas to be taken from these old schedules? Certainly the amount of programme-sharing between Radio 1 and Radio 2 is surprising, as is also the cut down broadcasting hours; and the amount of localness on-air on national BBC radio. As BBC television continues to have a healthy amount of local opt-outs, and as the government promotes local television channels, is the national-ness of the BBC’s services a potential problem: or a benefit for local commercial radio to capitalise on, if you’ll pardon the pun?

- Full schedules for Thursday March 18 1971: Radio 1, 2 and 3 and Radio 4
- March 18th 1971 is a “near-typical” day? Only if you ignore the small matter of my birth. :)
- I’m in Australia (Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne), and will be here during the first few weeks of 2012. My best wishes to you and your family for 2012.

All day on Wednesday, Hallam FM‘s news broadcasts covered details of a house fire in Thurcroft, a town to the East of Sheffield. Single mother Sam Woodburn (above) and her six children lost everything in the fire, including their christmas presents.

Spurred on by Hallam FM’s own station charity, “Cash for Kids”, listeners leapt in to help. The station has been helping to raise support, awareness, clothes, toiletries and Christmas gifts for the family since first hearing about the fire. Sam’s friends, and even complete strangers, have also rallied round offering their support; donating furniture, old clothes and money.

But that wasn’t all. In this clip, she’s told that one generous listener has even offered the family the use of a house until they get themselves sorted out.

Radio has the power to touch so many people in positive ways, all year round: and to help those in need. Radio – a shared experience produced by human beings – can achieve wonderful things if we put our minds to it.

Imagine your iPod – or Pandora – doing the same?

Have a wonderful holiday-time.

Here’s a paragraph from a press release heralding a new YouGov report which appears to slag off broadcast radio.

Digital Radio: needing a stronger signal
Just over one in five (22%) of 18-24 year olds have listened to the Radio via a portable radio set (including DAB). However, over one third (38%) of this age group has listened to radio streamed over the internet. Whilst the measurement of radio audiences has moved to the digital age with RAJAR’s introduction of its online diary – built in conjunction with YouGov – DAB take-up hasn’t quite lived up to the initial hype. To make this happen, says Brilot, “The radio industry needs to educate and support consumers as they become accustomed to new ways of listening and to ensure that reach and frequency opportunities are truly maximised – not lost – in the digital age.”

(Head in hands) Where does one start with this misleading presentation of their research?

A “have listened” figure with no timescale is pointless. I have eaten snails (once, in Brussels in 2000); that doesn’t mean I’d do so again, because they were disgusting. Given there’s no timescale given at all for this research, had I only listened to internet radio once in the past ten years, I’d be counted too. So, I’m unsure what the details above are intended to convey, other than the rather obvious observation that the opportunities for trial over the internet (in most homes in the UK) are considerably higher than DAB (in 39.4% of homes).

A “have listened” figure conveys nothing about consumption. The only thing that matters for radio is how long people listen. If every radio listener only listened to radio for five minutes a week, the entire radio industry would go bankrupt. (They actually listen for 22.8 hours a week.)

“Digital radio” and “DAB” are not the same thing. While even Digital Radio UK gets confused every now and again, “DAB” is the terrestrial-broadcast digital radio signal, which forms a part of digital radio. “Digital Radio” also includes internet radio, and radio over the TV: everything, indeed, except AM/FM. To put that into context, only 64.9% of all radio listening in the UK is attributed to AM/FM – the rest is either to “digital radio” (28.2%), or “don’t know” (6.9%). “Digital Radio” is in virtually every home in the UK, since it’s delivered via the internet, DAB, or digital television.

Digital television is surprisingly effective for certain demographics. Digital television – which is neither portable, nor ‘DAB’ – accounts for 33% of total listening for BBC 1Xtra, and 24.3% of total listening for Absolute Radio Classic Rock. This is radio, and we’re in a multiplatform world: yet, YouGov have ignored this method of listening to the radio.

Radio is not solely consumed on a portable device. The majority of radio listening isn’t done in a portable environment – only 20% of radio listening is done in a car, for example. The 80% of radio listening that is done “at home” or “at work” is not solely consumed on a portable device: indeed, while that radio in your kitchen may technically be ‘portable’, the fact that it’s plugged into the mains probably shows it isn’t really. Let’s not forget that a television is not ‘portable’: and nor is a desktop computer, for that matter. (Is a laptop a ‘portable device’? Yes, as long as you’re not planning on using it whilst on the move.)

You can’t compare “radio listening on a portable device” with “internet radio”, as this attempts to do. I get internet radio on my mobile phone. I get AM/FM radio on my decidedly non-portable hifi. Neither are mutually exclusive. It’s therefore a broken argument to compare one with another with the linking word “however”. Here’s another example of a similar comparison: I was born in London: however, I wear black socks. See how it doesn’t work?

This ‘research’ says nothing about the state of DAB takeup. While it’s true that DAB is slower to take-up than predicted – let’s not forget it took 44 years for FM to overtake AM in the US – this research doesn’t prove or disprove anything about DAB. Dan Brilot’s quote makes sense in isolation: but it’s got nothing to do with achieving faster take-up of DAB or any other radio technology.

Does this research say that lots of people have tried radio over the internet at least once during their entire life? Yes.
Does this research say that 22% of young people listen to the radio on a ‘portable device’ over some unpublished time period? Yes.
Is this press release accurate in any other respect? No.

Disclaimer: While my clients include RAJAR, RadioCentre and Radioplayer, I do not speak on their behalf.

The full press release is not seemingly openly published on YouGov’s website, so here it is, for context:

Smart TV, Smartphones, Tablets, DAB, Facebook: YouGov’s consumer technology predictions for 2012

London, 19th December 2011: YouGov, the most quoted research agency in the UK, today reveals its predictions for 2012 on people’s consumption and behaviour around Smart TV, smartphones, Facebook, digital newspapers and digital radio.

Smart TV: not quite a smart bet…yet
Only 15% of UK consumers say they will own one within the next 12 months

Smart TV ownership (a TV set able to be connected directly to the internet via Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi) is slowly growing. Consequently, the television set will soon become a key device that people use to access internet content either directly, via a games console (such as the Xbox 360) or other ‘plug-in’ box such as Boxee or YouView (a new partnership between major broadcasters such as the BBC and Channel Four as well as BT).

Already 1 in 10 people in the UK own a Smart TV and, while intention to purchase is currently very low, sales could well be stimulated by several key events such as the UK launches in 2012 of Google TV and Netflix, as well as major sporting occasions such as the European Football Championships and the Olympics. There are even rumours that Apple will release a smart TV device: ‘iTV’. Dan Brilot, Media Consulting Director at YouGov, says “Smart content producers must continue to develop their services to make it increasingly easier for people to watch what they want, when they want, wherever they want.”

A main driver for adoption of Smart TV in the future could be the increasing availability of content which is currently only available on broadcast television. Just over one third (36%) of UK respondents aged 18-24 claimed that they would be encouraged to purchase a Smart TV set if more of the TV content they normally watch was available on the internet.

There are already more and more services becoming available on Smart TV’s such as YouTube, MSN, Twitter, Skype and web browsing using Bing or Google. It could well be the ability to use social networking services in conjunction with television services, so called ‘Social TV’ that could be the ‘killer app’ for the Smart TV. According to Brilot “This next evolution of our TV sets is enabling viewers to share and comment on media content using Facebook and Twitter, or even to set up ‘virtual living rooms’ where programmes are watched at the same time between friends but at different locations with social networks enabling the sharing of the viewing experience.”

Smartphones: marketers must get smarter
86% of smartphone users ignore advertising on mobiles

In the UK, 40% of people own smartphones, increasing to 68% within the next upgrade cycle. Smartphones’ increasing ubiquity and functionality – location-based services, paying for goods, TV on demand – will result in increasing control and interaction with the ‘real’ world, whether though smartphones, smart watches or other personal devices. For example:

In the home: interacting with TVs, tablets and even heating systems
For goods and services: interacting with location based marketing, point of sale vouchers and special offers, targeted video billboards, QR codes etc.
For brand marketers it’s clear that, when engaging with consumers through mobile, this is the type of interaction that provides the real opportunity – not advertising. YouGov research shows how ineffective advertising on mobile phones is; 86% of smartphone users ignore advertising on it; 79% say ads on their smartphones are irritating.

Facebook: the #1 web portal
60% of UK online population now use it more than once a day

Facebook could well become the main portal that people use all over the world to interact with the web. In terms of visits, it’s already the No.1 site in the US and a close second to Google in the UK. According to YouGov’s own social media tracker, three fifths (60%) of the UK online population now use Facebook more than once a day. If the expected IPO goes ahead in 2012 Facebook will have even more financial clout to challenge Google as the global No.1 web company.

Digital Newspapers: putting print to bed (with a tablet)
24% of tablet users access the web whilst in bed

“The decline of print media sales will only accelerate during 2012,” says Russell Feldman, Associate Director of Technology at YouGov. “Tablets and apps will increase the digital cannibalisation of paper copies as they erode more of those previously inaccessible locations to digital devices; for example, nearly one quarter (24%) of tablet users access the internet whilst in bed.” Tablet usage is still small (currently only 4% of the UK population own one) but that number is growing and, as the market develops and new entrants such as the Kindle Fire gain traction, newspaper and magazine publishers will focus more effort on specific tablet versions of their publications.

Digital Radio: needing a stronger signal
Just over one in five (22%) of 18-24 year olds have listened to the Radio via a portable radio set (including DAB). However, over one third (38%) of this age group has listened to radio streamed over the internet.

Whilst the measurement of radio audiences has moved to the digital age with RAJAR’s introduction of its online diary – built in conjunction with YouGov – DAB take-up hasn’t quite lived up to the initial hype. To make this happen, says Brilot, “The radio industry needs to educate and support consumers as they become accustomed to new ways of listening and to ensure that reach and frequency opportunities are truly maximised – not lost – in the digital age.”

We already know that radio listeners feel incredibly close to their favourite radio station. Radio has a tremendously strong bond with its audience.

When change happens at a radio station, most listeners accept the changes with a little grumbling. Sometimes, they write letters, or run a Facebook campaign. But it’s rare that they come down and demonstrate angrily outside: much less run an “Occupy”-type demonstration.

But that’s exactly what’s happening at talk station KGO in San Francisco.

The station was bought by Cumulus (roughly an equivalent of GMG Radio in terms of UK size ranking) a while back; they’ve reduced the amount of local programming and got rid of many of the station’s long-serving voices. And it turns out the listeners don’t like it much: so they’ve come to the station to protest.

Read this coverage from RadioSurvivor.com for a good overview, including video interviews and more. And industry publication RadioINK has taken up the story too.

A loss of local radio to national syndicated programming sounds eerily familiar to us here in the UK; but a protest of angry listeners? Not so much.

Photo nicked from radiosurvivor.com

As the US gets the Galaxy Nexus today, and as I have had mine for three weeks or so now, here are some more considered thoughts after my initial 24-hour review. It’s only with continuous use that you discover issues with devices: and this, for me, is why reviews are normally fairly useless, since they rarely use a device for longer than a day or two; so I hope you find this useful.

On the mobile network 3, I didn’t suffer the volume bug which plagued other users (though when using my O2 SIM in the phone I certainly did). This is the only apparent bug that has been reported in the press. But there are more: and this post is mostly about them.

Bug: Calendar synch is dodgy
After 24 hours of having the phone, all my calendar information from my main calendar simply disappeared. Accessing via the mobile interface also appeared to show a completely empty calendar. To say I was concerned would be an under statement. Thankfully, something odd was happening with the calendar on the phone; I fixed it, and thought nothing more of it.
Recently, the calendar stopped synching certain events: so if I added an event on the web, it didn’t synch onto the phone. After missing two appointments (grr), I’ve worked out how to fix that, too: but doubtless it’ll happen again.
If you need to fix the Galaxy Nexus calendar, I’ve added a fix to the Google calendar help forums.

Bug: The screen sometimes becomes completely unresponsive
The physical buttons on the phone still work, but the screen stops reacting to any button press. Since there appears to be no way of forcing the phone to switch off (holding down the power button appears to do nothing), the only way to escape out of this is to yank the battery out – or, oddly, wait for some time after which the bug fixes itself.

Bug: Android is upgrading
On boot, it always claims that Android is upgrading. It’s not, of course, and I suspect it really means it’s running some system checks of some kind. I personally think this is a bug. The rest of the web appears undecided: perhaps it’s just poor wording (and ought to read “Android is starting”).

Bug: Sometimes it breaks my Mac
I charge it occasionally through the USB port on my MacBook Air – which has the Android Filesystem software on it. Sometimes it stops the cursor working, which is a frustration: and the only way out of that is a hard reboot.

Feature! It works perfectly with Bluetooth keyboards
After fifteen minutes fiddling in a Washington DC-based BestBuy, I discovered that the Galaxy Nexus (and, one would suspect, any ICS system) pairs quite happily with a Bluetooth keyboard, like the Apple one. While ostensibly a touch interface, you get quite used to the keyboard, and it’s a godsend for sending long emails and other things.

Boo – no Flash support… yet
There’s no Flash support for the Galaxy Nexus yet: which means no BBC iPlayer and no BBC News app either. Apparently it’s coming: and that might be one of the reasons why it’s taken some time to see it in the US.

Boo – support is flaky for games
I’ve been taking advantage of the 10p offer on the Android Market a lot, and I’ve spotted quite a few games that simply haven’t worked at all, or those that do are calibrated wrongly (a quite good racing game is impossible to play since the accellerometer is the wrong way round). As we see more ICS devices, I suspect we’ll see better support.

The battery
Battery life is about as good as any other Android phone: which is to say, not brilliant. What people forget about Android applications is that they all can steal processor power and communicate back to base; and that all takes battery power; and it’s doubtless an errant app. I’ll see if I can work out what’s going on.

But that’s about it: no other issues. Interestingly, I find my Sony Tablet S now feels “old-fashioned” when using it, and I’m very much looking forward to it getting an ICS upgrade (apparently in Feb or March next year).