Hari on why the Beeb's model is more necessary than ever

A rallying cry from Johann Hari in this mornings Indy for the BBC.

He writes that the Tories' plan to scrap impartiality would mean Sky mutating into Fox News.The "deal" that the party has done with the Murdoch empire he says will

The Tory government will sweep in and widen the gap, while unleashing a snarling pack of Fox News-style hounds across the rest of the channels. And for what? To win the favour of a foreign right-wing billionaire.

He adds that

Far from becoming outdated, the BBC model is more necessary than ever. Commercial television is losing its ability to produce quality programmes, fast. Advertising money is leaking away to the internet: this week, for the first time, online advertising overtook TV ads in Britain. Revenues are expected to fall by 20 per cent in the next decade, and to continue spiralling after that. As more of us get digital packages that make it possible to record programmes and fast-forward through the ads, it will only get worse. Budgets for shows on commercial channels are in freefall. We won't get good programmes for nothing again. The BBC is the simplest answer, and we are overwhelmingly happy to pay it.

24 hour news-Is it time to differentiate the product?

Rolling 24 hour news channels drive the news agenda. They are on permanently in newsrooms, government and business offices. Every country used to have an airline as a symbol of national pride, now they have a news channel.

Writes Charlie Beckett at his Polis blog and argues that it is time to differentiate some of the product.

He has some valuable experience in this being a producer at the launch of News24 which he says

By the time it got on air was much more like Sky News and within a year it was entirely the same.

Sky have a twitter correspondent

More news on the power of twitter comes from Tech Crunch who report that Sky News has become the first mainstream broadcaster to have a twitter correspondent.

Ruth Barnett is now their “Twitter correspondent” - to scour Twitter for potentially breaking news stories, speaks volumes. It also serves as a warning to those who might think that what they say on Twitter “in the clear” (in public) will go unnoticed by the wider world.

But the article makes a good point

the mainstream news media is watching us on Twitter. We in turn are watching them. But unlike the old days, you can block people on Twitter. Will Twitter users start to block journalists they don’t want to be followed by? Will news outlets start to not declare their Twitter profiles, or order to avoid this?

ht-Benji Lanyado

Marr gets it wrong

Andrew Marr has managed to upset Sky News in his evidence to a House Of Lords committee

This from Telegraph co.uk

Giving evidence to the House of Lords Communication Committee, Mr Marr also took a swipe at Sky News, BBC TV's principal news competitor. He faintly praised Sky by suggesting that it was only "frequently right".
"I do think (the BBC is) different and we have to stay different," he told the committee.
"This is most acute in the age of 24-hour news because the desperate journalistic desire to be first is felt so intensely.
"Our main competitor, Sky News, always trumpets that it is first with this, first with that.
"Well, we are the BBC and we have to be sure that we are right. We must not, therefore, get into the culture of first with this, first with everything - first and frequently right."

Oops as Adrian Monck points out

Lest Marr forget, on July 7, 2005 it was Sky News, with their refusal to slavishly accept the official line, who told Londoners what was really going on in the capital, whilst the Corporation steadfastly regurgitated what it was told.

And let us not forget whilst still the political reporter at the BBC,he reported from outside Downing Street after Baghdad had fallen

"Tony Blair,said they would be able to take Baghdad without a bloodbath, and that in the end the Iraqis would be celebrating. And on both of those points he has been proved conclusively right. And it would be entirely ungracious, even for his critics, not to acknowledge that tonight he stands as a larger man and a stronger prime minister as a result."

Another victim of the Microphone

Spare a thought for Sky news presenter Julie Etchingham,who became the latest in a long line of broadcasters to suffer the curse of leaving a microphone on.

Whilst Tory leader David Cameron was pontificating about immigration,the hapless Julie mumbled "extermination" as David was about to give his solution to the immigration problem

Has that ruined her chances of News at Ten?