Today figures show a thirst for hard news

This morning's latest radio listening figures show the public's increased interest in serious news coverage following the financial crisis.

The today programme has seen a rise in audience figures with its weekly reach now at 6.6m up half a million on the previous quarter and at its highest figures since the 9/11 attacks on America.

The Guardian reports that

A strong performance by the Today programme also helped BBC Radio 4 to its biggest ever share of the audience in the three months to the end of December 2008, according to the latest Rajar listening figures published today.

Bad news though for the Virgin rebirth station Absolute whose audience has fallen by a fifth.

Again according to the Guardian

Absolute's average weekly audience fell by nearly 500,000 listeners on the previous quarter to 1.89 million in the final three months of 2008.
And Absolute was down nearly 600,000 compared with the same period in 2007,

Forget Brand-what about other threatened species?

If you thought that here in the UK the media have been far too obsessed with the Andrew Sachs,Brand and Ross affair,it seems that other countries media also focus on the wrong issues.

Over at Newswatch India they report that

The release of the IUCN Red List (of threatened species) in Barcelona, Spain earlier this month generated only 35 news stories across Indian news outlets. The arrest of 230-odd people at a rave party in Mumbai (which happened on the same day, October 6) generated 93 stories in the first two days of the incident alone.
Most news establishments also failed to present the issue of species extinction in the Indian context. There were only three distinct news items which could be seen as India-centric stories by Indian news outlets. The Press Trust of India (PTI) story about 49 mammals facing grave threats of extinction was carried by three news outlets. The Hindu (republished by Zee News) and the Assam Tribune published localised stories.

CNN creeps onto Freeview

Another sign that hard news is replacing celeb gossip.

This from Digital Spy

CNN International will replace Nuts TV on Freeview early next year, Turner Broadcasting has confirmed.
The channel's block of programming aimed at European audiences will air every night between 9pm and 1am. Allocation of a channel number is pending.

Is the tide turning on celeb culture?Probably not but at least a start

An interesting piece on the front of the Media Guradin this morning which suggests that the news events of the past few weeks may have been turning our heads away from celebrity.
According to John Harris' article

It seemed as though our obsession with all things celebrity would never ebb - but the rise of more weighty magazines suggests there is a need for understanding in these troubled times

For John those days that

saw the unstoppable slide of cultural standards had only to point to the magazine market for evidence. The freshly launched lads' weeklies were plumbing unimagined depths and attracting thousands of readers, and the sales racked up by Heat and its various clones seemed to confirm the invincible tyranny of celebrity culture. For those who habitually claim the end of civilisation, the story was clear enough: the demise of deep thought, and a populace increasingly uninterested in the machinations of a world that was actually in more ferment than it had been for half a century.

However today the slide in the celeb and trivia magazine sales has been balanced by the rise in sales of the serious magazine

After about four years of consecutive sales hikes, the Spectator was up again, to a creditable circulation of more than 76,000. In keeping with over two decades of steady growth, the Economist's UK edition managed a year-on-year rise of 5.6% and sales of more than 182,000. It now has a global readership of more than 1.3 million. Prospect, the cerebral monthly launched in 1995 and once bought by a mere 5,000 readers, was up by 10.7%, to a once-unthinkable 27,500.

So could the unthinkable be happening."From small shoots?"

How and why trivia holds our attention

Why is it that small stories always make the news?

Over at Politico John Harris writes that

Important stories, sometimes the product of months of serious reporting, that in an earlier era would have captured the attention of the entire political-media community and even redirected the course of a presidential campaign, these days can disappear with barely a whisper.

whereas

Trivial stories — the kind that are tailor-made for forwarding to your brother-in-law or college roommate with a wisecracking note at the top — can dominate the campaign narrative for days.

I think the answer is quite simple.It's our culture,it's our yearning for celebratory and its our small attention span in the era of multiplicity of outlets and information.

John cites

This weekend’s uproar over Hillary Rodham Clinton invoking the assassination of Robert Kennedy as rationale for continuing her presidential campaign is an especially vivid example of modern journalism as hyperkinetic child — overstimulated by speed and hunger for a head-turning angle that will draw an audience

But if you want a Uk example look no further than the coverage of Cherie Blair and her spat with Alsitair Campbell over the weekend at Hay on Wye

Is the success of the Beeb's 10.00pm news a sign that we are getting back to a serious news agenda

Is this the beginning of the end for tabloid-style TV news? Let's hope so says Rachel Cooke in this week's new Statesman as she reviews the BBC AND ITV contributions to the news agenda at 10.00pm.

As bad as the BBC bulletin is,

the programme is presented by the sullen-looking Edwards and, thanks to the credit crunch, despite being increasingly hampered by the stretched vowels and mangled consonants of Robert "Smarty-Pants" Peston, the BBC business editor.

Rachel applauds the fact that the corporation have not gone head to head with the new and revamped News at Ten

When ITV reclaimed the 10pm slot three months ago, I worried that, in order to compete, the BBC would go the same route. We started hearing the word "exclusive" more often, and there were more pointless outside broadcasts, featuring Edwards standing white-faced and anoraked beneath an arc light

But all seems well for now

The success of the Ten O'Clock News gives me hope: that we are finally tiring of tabloid values; that the shouting match that is the multimedia age is leading us, slowly, to crave sobriety, to be grateful for considered and judicious editing.

Bazalgette's comments-heard before but what about hard news standards?

I read with interest Peter Bazalgette's comments last night to the royal televison society.The person that inflicted Big Brother amongst other things on the nation sets out an array of proposals aimed at the funding of public service content

These include privatising Radio's 1,and 2 as well as Channel 4 and releasing ITV and channel 5 from certain of its public service obligations.

I am sure that we have heard all the arguments before and as Guardian Media reports

Increased competition in the digital age, changing consumption habits and emerging new technology have all made the status quo unsustainable, resulting in a vigorous debate over the future of the licence fee, how to fund Channel 4 and whether ITV and Five can be held to their existing obligations.

Of cause what this will do to the status of hard news coverage on public sector broadcasting is not discussed.ITV are already under attack over attempts to cut back on news reporting.Would a privatised Radio 1 provide a service such as Newsbeat which aims to target youngsters with hard news.

BBC challenges youngsters to set the agenda

We had a seminar yesterday which discussed the challenges for quality journalism.The usual suspects were aired,economic arguments,churnalism,the internet etc.

Perhaps its greatest challenge is getting the younger generation to participate in hard news.

Helen Shreeve writing on the BBC's editors blog today asks

Can the gap be narrowed between how teenagers create and broadcast their own content via the internet and mobile phones and the traditional news broadcasters?

And tells of a project tomorrow where

BBC News is working with more than 250 schools across the UK to turn thousands of teenagers into news broadcasters for the day.

Some of the topics being covered are,living with cancer, and campaigning on Darfur.No mention of Heath Ledger or Britney Spears.I wish them well

I wish them well