"Former Apprentice contestant Katie Hopkins argues that people who eat, drink and smoke more than is good for them should pay more towards the NHS..."
Hopkins is perfectly entitled to her opinions of course but why has the BBC felt it necessary to give her this platform? If there was really nobody more credible to champion this viewpoint then perhaps it didn't need saying. And if somebody has to be introduced as a 'former Apprentice contestant' then unless they are discussing The Apprentice they are probably not the right person for the debate.
This isn't really about Hopkins, the wider issue here is that we seem to have reached a point where fleeting infamy on the back of a reality TV show acts as an access-all-areas pass to the rent-a-quote ranks of 'expert without portfolio' in the UK media.
Perhaps the BBC would like to share with us Maureen from Driving School's thoughts on the Middle East. Or maybe we should be told Rhydian from The X Factor's views on global warming.
Personally I'm eager to know what Bubble from series two of Big Brother thinks about women bishops and I won't sleep until I've heard Pudsey the dog's one woof for 'yes', two woofs for 'no' opinion on whether Chelsea were right to sack their manager.
George Entwistle, the new director general of the BBC has spoken this week about the corporation needing 'more women and less bureaucracy'.
He might like to mention this ambition to the production companies behind some of the Beeb's most popular panel shows, because today I found this blog which looks at the extent to which women are under-represented on shows such as Would I Lie To You, Have I Got News For You, Mock The Week and QI.
Below are the results for all people appearing on Mock The Week and QI. You can see the rest here:
Business travellers, commuters, parents and frustrated 3G outcasts
rejoice (as long as you've got an Apple device). The BBC has announced the
launch of a download service for BBC iPlayer. This means iPad and iPhone users
will be able to download shows onto their device and watch them wherever they are, irrespective
of 3G or Wi-Fi signal. An Android version is on its way apparently.
In a press release, a BBC spokesman said:
"With
mobile downloads for BBC iPlayer, you can now load up your mobile phone or
tablet with hours and hours of BBC television programmes, then watch them on
the road, on the tube, on a plane, without worrying about having an internet
connection or running up a mobile data bill."
Of course, we could all use this as an
opportunity to bemoan the fact some people can't go a few hours without
watching TV but that's not really in the spirit of innovation or choice is it. And at least by
being able to pick from some of the quality output on the iPlayer you can be
sure it's good TV.
Or more likely kids TV.
Because data released today by the BBC
suggests much on-demand video viewing is being driven by kids. Or perhaps more accurately parents looking to entertain kids. In fact, 34 per cent of iPlayer programmes
being watched on tablets is children's programming:
Source/credit:BBC
That
probably comes as no surprise to anybody who has ever sat a toddler down with
an iPad and an episode of In The Night Garden.
When it comes to smartphones, children's
programming is still highest but it's a far less decisive margin. It appears the tablet is
king in the nurseries of Britain and on the backseats of sensible family cars.
Also offering some insight into the
life of the modern parent is the very telling time of day when TV watched on
iPads outstrips any other device: 4am to 8.30am:
Source/credit:BBC
That gentle sobbing you can hear may well be the sound of a tired parent watching Bob The Builder for the fourth time on iPlayer at
6am. But at least now they can stockpile episodes.
OK, I'm a bit late to this one but I just read this wonderful contender for quote of the year, while in the process of looking for something far less interesting and thought I'd share:
"There was Rick, Lionel and myself. They got stoned on the
biggest joint you've ever seen — in the studio.
"They were absolutely
stoned out of their minds. I couldn't work with it. I really couldn't."
Are these the last days of a rock group being described? No, it's Johnny Ball describing life on set when he worked on Play School.
For those of us who grew up watching Play School, it explains rather a lot.
But you know what man, if you can remember Play School, you weren't really there.
Video designer and cameraman Duncan McLean, who spent the Olympics working for the BBC has posted this 'day in the life' of the Olympic Park, much of it filmed from the BBC's vantage point overlooking the site. Nice work...
You would have thought the Olympics were exciting enough - or at least controversial enough - to keep the media in proper news stories but it seems not.
The BBC is reporting that "only" 36 per cent of us answered "yes" when asked whether we are more excited about the Olympics today than we were in January.
At first glance it sounds bad and it was certainly portrayed as bad news for Olympic organisers. But it's possibly worse news for people who like to see statistics used in a sensible and meaningful way.
Consider the case of somebody who was super excited about the Olympics in January but is still just as super excited today. Not more so. Asked that question, they would rightly answer "no".
"I couldn't get more excited," they might respond, while waving an Olympic flag and eating one of the official snackfoods of the London 2012 Olympics. But they still go in the "no" column.
But somebody who "probably couldn't give a toss about the Olympics" in January whose position has since matured to "definitely couldn't give a toss" would also answer "no", as would anybody whose utter lack of excitement about the games has been total and unwavering.
But there may also be lots of people who are very much in favour of the Olympics who simply do not feel any more excited now than they were at an arbitrary point earlier in the year. After all, the games hadn't started then and they haven't started now.
So the "no" camp could consist of impossibly excited Olympics fans, some disenfranchised grumblers and a lot of different people in between.
Chips and missiles
Meanwhile the "Yes" camp will include all sorts, from the fans whose already feverish excitement is growing further as the games get nearer to more reticent souls who are looking forward to the sport finally beginning and the interminable build up, with its talk of chips and missiles, finally ending.
Or to put it another way, the "yes" camp could consist of impossibly excited Olympics fans, some disenfranchised grumblers and a lot of different people in between.
And all of this of course is assuming anybody can remember how excited about the Olympics they were in January, which I certainly can't. I don't think I'm more excited now but I'm definitely in favour of the games and looking forward to them.
The fact this nonsense question and the flawed statistics it produced tell us nothing is neither here nor there of course. The story was clearly intended in a glance to make people think that only a third of us are excited about the Olympics. We're in a negative phase of the Olympic story arc (or the "Olympic news parabola", as Charlie Beckett branded it this week).
However, this hasn't been the dodgiest Olympic stat of the week.
That honour goes to the outlets reporting there is "a 50 per cent chance" that a bomb or deadly weapon will be taken into an Olympic venue. The reports are based on one person's account of the training security staff have received and a finger in the air guesstimation of the risk posed by persons unknown.
Ridiculous
And it's not just the media losing a little perspective over the forthcoming games. Index on Sponsorship pointed out this week that LOCOG is trying to change the way the internet works.
This from LOCOG's online terms and conditions:
Links to the Site. You may create your own link to the Site, provided that your link is in a text-only format... and agree that no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner.
So you're not allowed to link to the London 2012 website if you're going to be rude about them? Good luck enforcing that.
Meanwhile, BBC mockumentary TwentyTwelve may have long since been left trailing by the beyond-parody real life lunacy of LOCOG, but it's still worth tuning in for the final couple of episodes and the Digital Strategy of PR agency Perfect Curve is well worth a watch... if only for the line about "Twibbons, Twadges and Twandanas"...
The Media Blog today turns three years old (hence all the childish humour and occasional tantrums). Over that time a lot of ground has been covered in more than 1,200 blog posts but it's some of the quirkier posts that have typically taken off with readers. That is certainly reflected in the 10 best-read posts from the past three years...
1. No!…no!…no!…no! That'll be the Liverpool Echo, with arguably one of the worst page layouts ever witnessed in the rich history of massively inappropriate headline, picture, caption and story clashes.
2. The BBC wrestles with social media: You know that moment when you accidentally set your development website live, complete with insults about your readers? Yeah, that…
3. Daybreak viewers get easily confused: The fact Daybreak viewers get confused by ITV +1, to the point they contact the programme via Twitter to tell them their clock is wrong – every single day – has provided hours of amusement. It all started with this post.
4. The wrong Steve Jobs: There are so many spoof Twitter accounts, including a fake Steve Jobs who famously fooled the Daily Mail...
5. A Twitter riot: If the internet has always been good for one thing then it is surely 'blaming stuff on'. Last summer that meant the Daily Mail blaming the London riots on Twitter.
7. Newspapers clash off-the-ball: While England and Sweden battled it out on the pitch to decide who was marginally more qualified to get knocked out at the Quarter Final stage of Euro 2012, the two countries’ newspapers fought it out in a series of spoof front pages.
8. Well somebody had to say something: This open letter to the BBC was an attempt to restore some much needed perspective to the debate about the Corporation’s coverage of the Jubilee. Only one person on Twitter didn’t get the joke.
9. Penguins will make kids gay: Over the past three years the Daily Mail has provided more fodder for The Media Blog than any other newspaper, including some odd views on penguins.
10. When captions attack: The BBC graphics team have given us a few laughs over the years, but this one will take some beating.
It's good isn't it. So good in fact, I could watch it again. Which is handy, because here's the BBC's Jonathan Amos on Wednesday explaining this whole Higgs Boson thingummy whatsit using some ping pong balls, a bag of sugar and a tray from the work canteen (click here to watch video).
I don't know enough about Higgs Boson to rule out the notion that using some ping pong balls, a bag of sugar and a tray from the work canteen isn't a painfully obvious way of explaining it. But certainly a few commenters online were quick to question the striking similarities between the BBC and Guardian demonstrations.
Updated: The BBC has now added a line crediting The Guardian and Ian Sample:
Last night, Chloe Smith MP joined the ranks of people who will forever be held up as an example of how not to conduct a TV interview. Here's a selection of some others over the years, in no particular order...
1. Peter Ward, CEO of the British Dental Association fuses 'jazz hands' with 'hailing a passing ship' in an attempt to break up this interview with the Tonight Programme...
2. The problem here is too much (bad) media training - Ed Miliband does his prize-winning impression of a broken record...
3. David Cameron definitely has opinions about gays rights, he's just not sure what they are...
4. The blindly loyal Bill Shorten shows politics down under has plenty to offer the 'How not to...' handbooks...
5. Zac Goldsmith and Jon Snow lock horns on Channel 4 News. Interview goes nowhere...
6. Diane Abbot leaves her phone on... oh, and answers it when it rings. Saved by the bell?
7. Sarah Palin may just be the best-read woman in the world. May...
Tory Treasury minister Chloe Smith has surely been installed this morning as the Patron Saint of Media Trainers after a brace of catastrophic interviews on TV last night flagged the dangers of sending somebody so poorly prepared onto live TV.
Smith, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, warmed up with an appearance on Channel 4 News where Krishnan Guru-Murthy gave her a shovel and the opportunity to start digging.
Warning: It is not comfortable viewing:
Incredibly, even after that Smith picked herself up off the canvass and headed to the BBC for round two with Jeremy Paxman (of all people).
Warning: This is even worse than you're thinking it's going to be.
Fans of the BBC's political satire The Thick Of It are surely put in mind of Ben Swain's own Paxman moment:
If you ever wondered why huge chunks of Channel 4's 10 O'Clock Live weren't very funny, it seems it may be because some of the jokes take around 16 months to fully mature. Take this darkly ironic sketch from Jimmy Carr who back in February 2011 critised the one per cent tax paid by Barclays Bank as an "ammoral scam"...
That is of course the same Jimmy Carr whose own offshore tax arrangement was exposed this week and branded "morally wrong" by David Cameron. Carr has subsequently apologised for what he called a terrible error of judgement.
With tired tasks and a rather underwhelming intake of hapless hopefuls the current series of The Apprentice is starting to drag a little. However, I found last week that a way to make it a little more interesting is to follow Alan Sugar's running commentary which offers sparkling insights into the show.
For example, last week's episode started in a very rainy London on the roof of restaurant Coq D'Argent. In the background you could see driving rain and the floor was awash with puddles. Sugar tweeted:
Then there was a scene where contestant Ricky was eating scallops while a restaurant owner showed him all around his establishment, clearly hoping for some free publicity. Sugar tweeted:
But after all that, the restaurant owner said 'no' when Ricky asked whether he would offer any discount on his prices. It had been a waste of time. Sugar tweeted:
And then at the next restaurant Ricky ate more scallops:
In the third restaurant Ricky ate even more scallops:
Alan Sugar has shared the email address of Mirror TV critic Kevin O'Sullivan on Twitter - urging his 1.9 million followers (through a thin veil of sarcasm) to email O'Sullivan following a negative review of The Apprentice in which the critic branded the current series the worst yet:
The tactic hasn't gone down well for Sugar. Some have suggested it looks desperate or petty, while O'Sullivan has claimed: "The vast majority of those who got in touch emphatically agreed with me."
Perhaps those in the Sugar camp were still trying to get their Amstrad em@iler working.
Cheap shot? Maybe, but mention of the em@iler isn't entirely gratuitous as there appears to be a precedent for this behaviour from Sugar.
In 2001, Sugar reportedly emailed 95,000 owners of the device, urging them to email technology journalist Charles Arthur who had branded the em@iler a flop in an Independent article. Sugar allegedly included Arthur's email address in his message and more than 1,300 customers took advantage.
However, the tactic backfired in the media and Arthur reported that a number of the people who did contact him did so to share their own criticism of the device.
"...this is by far the worst product I have bought ever..."
Although it should be said there was positive feedback among the criticism, you'd have thought Sugar might have learned his lesson about putting his critics in touch with other critics.
He should also realise Twitter followers aren't always fans, nor are they there to do his bidding, as must have become clear after calling upon followers to share their opinions today:
BBC Scotland got a bit of a scoop today when Prince Charles popped in to the studio to read the weather. He's no John Kettley but it's not a bad effort. He avoided any gags about forecasting a long overdue reign:
A couple of weeks ago, I quickly (you'd never guess) pulled together the below diagram to explain the soaraway success of BBC1 talent show The Voice UK, but also predicting its imminent decline:
You will have worked out it is far from scientific but it spread far and wide on Twitter and the majority of feedback suggested it summed things up pretty neatly. I wasn't the only one who felt as though I'd gone from watching and enjoying the show to merely rubbernecking the latest television car crash to brighten up our Saturday evening tweeting (and The Voice UKcertainly got people tweeting - for better or worse).
But as the producers of Red Or Black can confirm, even a Saturday night show which is so bad it's captivating starts to lose viewers pretty quickly.
By this past weekend I had stopped watching - as had more than two million others. The volume of tweets about the show was also down 28 per cent.
Ever since the format changed from the refreshing novelty of the blind auditions to the painful spectacle of the 'battle round' the mood in the Twitter camp noticably shifted. So where did it go wrong?
Murder
First of all people realised the battle round allowed judges to cull all the contestants they'd accidentally picked up in the earlier round, when all they had to go on was the voice (thus making something of a mockery of the show's entire pitch). Secondly, the battle round forced two contestants to sing off against one another while simultaneously ganging up to murder a number of popular songs.
Inevitably the battles became no more than two people shouting at each other in desperation. If the instantly forgettable contestants had been allowed to kneel at the judges' feet and just scream "PLEASE PICK ME OR I DON'T KNOW WHAT I MIGHT DO!!" it's easy to imagine several would have taken that option (though they would inevitably have dragged the "DO!!" out for at least 10 seconds of self-indulgent warbling).
And while the judges (coaches, if you must) are either charmingly inoffensive (Will.i.am and Tom Jones), channel-hoppingly irritating (Jessie J) or almost entirely anonymous (the Irish one who sits on the end just nodding) they seem incapable of saying or doing anything that won't now expedite the show's decline, not least because for all their unconvincing, overplayed 'hardest decision ever' rhetoric they seem about as bothered as the rest of us.
So can The Voice UK hang on to enough viewers long enough to secure a second series and a much needed overhaul? It seems likely. After all, even Fame Academy - the BBC's previous, shortlived attempt to take on ITV's talent shows - managed a second series before it vanished into the abyss.
The talk in today's tabloids was of a rescue package involving Kylie Minogue and Cheryl Cole being brought in to paper over the widening cracks. I can only speak for myself when I say such predictable tinkering won't be nearly enough to get that interest curve heading in the right direction any time soon.
The Daily Star and Daily Mail have both today accused the BBC of exploiting presenter Holly Willoughby's cleavage in an attempt to attract viewers.
Putting aside the fact the allegations are a bit of nonsense, trumped up to justify reproducing several pictures of said cleavage, there is also more than a whiff of hypocrisy about all of this. The Mail Online's story is next to its ubiquitous right hand column packed full of pictures of famous women (mostly Kim Kardashian) in bikinis or lingerie to draw in web traffic:
Meanwhile the Daily Star's front page splash - which branded Willoughby's outfit a "sex trick" - was just the turn of a page away from today's Page 3 girl:
During Britain's Got Talent last night I joked that tabloid editors would be scrambling to get a picture of performing dog Pudsey disgracing himself in order to bring the rising star down a peg or two:
But I should have known better than to joke when the Daily Mail is so willing to transcend parody:
