Gaps in the new media skills of TV and radio journos according to a survey

According to a survey from the association of electronic journalists,only 38% of TV and radio news directors say their staffs are “really on top of new technology and where they’re headed.” The rest have “a long way to go” (48%) or are “mostly winging it” (13.7%).

via Advancing the Story

The study show that practically every TV news station has a web siteand nearly all radio stations also have one

Looking specifically at TV, a vast majority (92.7%) of sites are airing video, but many fewer are airing newscasts, either live (33.9%) or recorded (30.6%). Interestingly, the Web publication of recorded newscasts dropped from a year ago while live newscasts increased, and there was more audio streamed online.
A little more than half the stations in the survey are producing blogs (55.6%) and just a fraction have the option to let users assemble their own newscasts (8.1%).

Give is television internet access

With Channel 4's decision earlier in the week to put all of its UK output on its on demand service for free,the lines between your Pc and your television are blurring.

It is nor surprising that this survey from Entertainment Media Research concludes that a significant proportion of consumers want to have web access on their televisions

Digital Spy reports that

According to a survey of 1,512 people aged between 15 to 54 conducted by the firm, 75% of respondents indicated a desire to view internet content on their television screens.

RTE on the verge

Could we have a case of a large state broadcaster going bump?

The Independent.ie reports that Ireland's RTE is on the brink of going bankrupt.The paper reports that

RTE is losing €1m a week and will not be able to pay staff by October unless a programme of salary cuts and redundancies is implemented in the coming weeks.

and it's losses are almost twice as high as previously budgeted.

It is currently trying to negotiate pay cuts of 12 per cent for its staff and a spokesman for the company told the paper that

"We need to claw back €68m. It poses a significant cash crisis for RTE. Otherwise the station will be in serious financial difficulty."

Ht-Adrian Monck

More jobs cuts on the way for ITV and 5

A bleak week is being predicted for both ITV and Channel 5 this week.

Around 100 jobs or a third of the workforce may go at five and ITV as it prepares to announce its annual results may lose as many as 500 as it will announce a second efficiency review.

Already a thousand jobs have gonme at the commercial broadcaster.

For Channel 5 a new budget has been approved for the current year and is thought to include staffing cuts in the face of falling advertising revenue

TV industry must button down the hatches according to Media consultants

Over at his Director's blog Charlie Beckett gives a handt=y synopsis on the current state and the challenges faces the TV industry gleened from a briefing by Oliver and Oldbaum

As Charlie reports

In his forecast for the next five years O&O’s Mark Oliver’s pointed out the obvious fact that ‘this is not a good time for a recession’ and that the TV industry is facing a ‘perfect storm’.

The particular challenges that it faces are

1.Macro Advertising shift
2.The recession
3.Fragmentation and distintermediation
4.Rising competitive intensity

But there is good news for other forms of media

Newspapers are going to be less effected by the downturn according to their new survey of consumer intentions. Both local and national papers are more resilient than many other forms of media and entertainment.

Why Discovery won't be going down the web road

For those who see Television output as being driven towards the web platform,perhaps a note of caution.

One of the largest television companies in the world announced on Thursday that it would broadcast on free-to-air television in the UK for the first time – and in doing so rejected the internet as a source of income for content producers.

Discovery Channel's David Zaslav maintains that

There is not a very strong economic model, number one, and, number two, from a viewership perspective, despite how aggressively others have gone on to the web, the take-up rate is not that strong.”

Ft.com

How to save the Beeb by Jeff Randle

Jeff Randle has a solution for the Beeb in this morning's Telegraph,ahead of the report "How To Save The BBC" which is published by the Centre for Policy Studies, a Right-of-centre think tank

Auntie's salad days are long gone, yet she remains an aphrodisiac of debate. From alleged bias and method of funding, to presenters' pay-packets and quality of output, the BBC is a reliable energiser of lacklustre dinner-parties

says Jeff and relates the story of when he was

its business editor, and the management was trying to crank up support for a renewed licence settlement (on even more generous terms than those left behind by Sir John Birt), I was invited to a dinner for opinion formers by the then head of Radio 4, Helen Boaden. It was attended by business luminaries, such as Sir Stuart Rose (Marks & Spencer), Allan Leighton (Royal Mail) and Sly Bailey (Trinity Mirror).

and his solution?

a broadcaster that had been scaled back to high-quality news, current affairs and documentaries, including works of brilliance such as Blue Planet. This could be achieved, I suggested, with no more than two radio stations and two television channels - and for a much diminished fee.

Funding the BBC-again

James Purnell's remarks about top slicing the license fee and using it to fund other broadcaster has incurred the ire of Polly Toynbee


Polly writing in this morning's Guardian says

This is no time to start an epic battle over the fate of the BBC, which is more loved and trusted than any government can hope to be. Every poll shows the BBC is a national treasure - yes, even when it blunders and is never quite as good as its high rhetoric. Yet for reasons that are essentially frivolous, Labour is toying with its demise.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Beeb and there are many including its role in today's multi broadcasting environment

the BBC needs competition from other public service broadcasters. Indeed it does, but not by first cutting the BBC back. Now, top-slicing the licence fee to subsidise others is suddenly becoming the government's way to fund an ailing Channel 4.

Def worth a read

Is Broadcasting any different?

A couple of good articles in the Indy this morning concerning the latest Tv scandal.

Conor Digham writes that "The TV industry must not allow itself to be hounded to death"

In particualar I have great sympathy with his comments

"at the moment, it's hard to move without finding another columnist piling into the debate by denouncing the world of falsehood and fabrication that is television. Some of these columnists and newspapers are settling old scores or continuing political agendas by groups such as News International or Associated Newspapers, which are revelling in the damage done to the BBC."

Quite Right Conor and he continues

"It's time for TV to start fighting back on the question of overall editorial performance. Thousands of hours of TV are produced each year, and fine programmes made by committed, honest teams. If TV is in the dock, it's worth asking whether the national press has the right to be self-appointed judge, jury and, if it has its way, executioner."

One of the other comments about the recent scandal has been the increase in the young nieve crowd who have made decisions based on chasing ratings rather than following procedure.Nicola Pearson writes that we shouldn't

blame the TV fakery scandals on inexperienced young staff, says Nicola Pearson. They're learning from an industry obsessed with quick-fix, low-quality entertainment

She quotes Roger Bolton who says

"Before deregulation and the creation of independent production companies, you worked on a long-term contract for a broadcaster. There was a formal system of training, as well as an informal one where producers and editors like me organised seminars to teach people how to construct something.
"A lot of people had a journalistic background, there were lawyers on hand and people watched each other. Now, anyone can come into broadcasting, with no particular training, and there is a casualisation of the industry. It's highly competitive, with short-term contracts and far more people wanting to do it than there are jobs."

Interesting comments but actually is broadcasting any different to other professions? Try getting any sense out of call centres,try getting some advice on a purchase in a shop.Broadcasting has fallen into the same trap,cost effectiveness is placed above customer service and good old fashioned comon sense.People are thought not to think but to act in a robotic way.