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Posts tagged ‘itv’

12
Feb

SeeSaw TV on demand now in CI and Isle of Man

I wrote a blog post two weeks ago about SeeSaw, the new television on demand service – mainly for archive content.

This service, currently in a limited invite only beta, is born out of the ashes of the rejected Project Kangaroo – planned by BBC, ITV & C4 but rejected by the BBC Trust.

When I first got my invite I was very excited by it, but I was instantly confronted by a message telling me it wasn’t available in the Channel Islands (well I think it said my location).

This was down to rights reasons, they didn’t have permission from the various rights holders (even though all the same shows were available through 4OD and Demand five for the islands) to make it available in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man – independent territories that have to be negotiated separately.

Then I got a message this morning to tell me that they’ve now managed to negotiate rights to make their shows available to the islands – which was a nice thing to read after a day flying to and from London.

It said: “We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently acquired the rights to show programmes in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

“You should now be able to join in the fun and watch your favourite programmes on SeeSaw.”

Which more than made my day and – I’ve tried it and it works brilliantly. This puts SeeSaw, even though it is still in invite only beta – well ahead of all the rest as it is the ONLY multi-network service available in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man.

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15
Dec

How I managed to avoid the X-Factor

I’m writing this post listening to a Spotify Playlist I created specifically for blogging (it inspires me to actually write instead of thinking about writing) and praising myself for having avoided the X-Factor and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here this year.

And I don’t mean just avoid watching it – I mean avoid it almost completely (with the exception of the odd photo of the stupid haired jedtwins thing) – I’ve not seen a single episode or video clip, I’ve not heard a song by or seen performance from ANY of the two shows.

But to achieve this I’ve had to pretty much avoid all of the main television networks, all television news, YouTube, shop windows, electronics shops and more – I’ve even had to avoid looking at the plasma on the wall in the BBC Jersey newsroom.

I haven’t watched a single show on ITV, the television at home has not been set to the channel once in the last few months and I only watch shows on the BBC or Channel 4 recorded through Sky+ or through iPlayer/4OD.

This isn’t so much because I’ve got a moral objection to the show – talent shows have been around for decades – more than I know I’ll get sucked into the crap and hate myself for it afterwards.

However, I have now heard the winner singing his version of the Miley Cyrus song, The Climb (heard not watched) – so I could comment with a tiny bit of knowledge and …. It’s rubbish.

He sounds like a poorer version of Gareth Gates, he has no feeling or emotion invested in the song and just dies.

I’m not a massive Miley fan but as I have a 9 year old Hannah Montana obsessed daughter I do know her music well (was dragged to see the film) and at least she has an interesting twang to her voice, a unique element and a bit of passion – the X-Factor one is just rubbish.

I can’t bring myself to come up with anything more creative than that because his voice and interpretation doesn’t deserve anything more creative.

Yes it will probably go to number one this week and so be Christmas number one (hopefully Rage Against the Machine will be at number two) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t rubbish – it’s just another item of merchandising that the fans of the television drama that is X-Factor have brought to support and show alliegence to their favourite show.

I’ve got no problem with that at all, in the same way that I’ve got no problem with the charts being manipulated by Facebook fans – the charts are meaningless and have been for a long time.

What matters is the songs/artists my friends suggest – the songs I discover myself through hours of scouring Spotify (like tonight) and the playlists I find hidden around the blogosphere.

Than and the charts in iTunes around specific genres. But that hasn’t stopped me getting the Rage Against the Machine song or listening to the rubbish X-Factor song.

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20
Sep

It’s not all about the money

Everytime a public organisation comes up with what is basically a good idea, something that will provide interesting content for free for the public in an easy to use way – somebody, usually somebody running a private company – jumps up and down and screams about it hurting the ‘commercial sector’.

I can completely understand a newspaper group getting a little anxious when they’ve got a big new service ready to launch, advertising in place and then someone like the BBC, the Government or another publicly funded body launches an almost identical service with tax payers money – but how often does that actually happen.

Most of the time the excuses for objecting to a cool new public service site, channel or project is that it would stop the private company from being able to create something similar in the future – thus cutting off a potential revenue stream.

But for me that is where the argument completely falls down – in most cases the public service version would be advertising free and as the commercial version would probably be advertising funded – I don’t see where the competition is?

OK so there would be a little bit of competing for eyeballs but I like to think that people are smart enough to rely on more than one source for their news and information – I use Twitter and Facebook even though Facebook is fast becoming Twitter.

I read every major newspaper website, I read more than one blog, even if they’re on the same subject and belong to several forums covering the same subject area.

What I’m saying is – why does it matter if the BBC runs a service similar to one a commercial company might run when the commercial company will live or die by advertising revenue (charging for things on the web doesn’t work unless its a mobile app) and the BBC won’t be taking advertising?

Equally why shouldn’t a local council create a local online television service to let people know what is happening in their town if they can afford it – although if they’re cutting other services I would suggest maybe thinking again?

In fact, scrap the example above as that really just seems to be about promoting the council – what councils should really be doing, and this would help local newspapers – is filming all council meetings and then providing a feed – for free – to all the newspapers, radio stations and other media in their area.

Those media services could then broadcast that feed on their sites, cut up videos/speeches to publish with articles and even be able to properly cover local council meetings without having to send a reporter – it could just be on a TV in the background in the newsroom.

This would provide local news services with free content, would allow them to have a journalist doing something else and would hopefully encourage greater transparency in local government.

If councils have the money to launch a TV service or newspaper promoting the council – surely that money would be better spent actually covering council meetings.

In fact, maybe that is something the BBC could help fund with some of the ‘digital switchover money’ instead of giving it to ITV or other broadcasters.

It could be an extention of the digital democracy project but instead of it all being broadcast on the BBC – it could be part of BBC Parliament with a branding free feed offered to each of the relevant local newspapers, websites, blogs and radio stations.

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21
Aug

Keeping movie magic alive

Kevin Lewis has been working with film for the last 40 years and his passion extends beyond what you see on screen.

For Kevin his passion is as much in the nuts, bolts and water cooled appature ring as it is in the moving pictures.

For the last 15 years he has been rebuilding the 50 year old projector that now brings the prints at the Jersey Outdoor Film Festival to life.

And despite telling me it is finished, he still finds himself tweeking, playing and cleaning it every day.

The projector in question is a Westar, is 50 years old this year and is one of the last to be made in Britain.

However, after being rebuilt over the last 15 years from spare parts and with the passion of a dedicated enthusiast it bares only a passing resemblance to the one originally built during the hey day of British cinema.

Old ProjectorOriginally built to play films in a cinema, the 35mm projector is now built into an old television outside broadcast truck called ‘OB2′ – Kevin wanted ‘OB1′ but two was in better condition.

And the truck itself, brought from a now defunct ITV franchise holder in the UK, gets the same level of care and attention as the project it carries around.

The ‘truck’ has now become a trailer, partly because having big metal bars makes it easier to ‘level’ when playing a film and partly because it makes it more portable.

It has been the centre piece of one of Jersey’s ‘hidden gem’ summer events.

OK so it is a bit of a stretch to call something attended by over 3,000 people ‘hidden’ but you won’t find it in the high profiles brochures or promoted in shop windows around town.

Every year Kevin brings out the ‘pearl screen’, the projector and makes use of his contacts as a former cinema owner to get the prints – so that thousands of islands and tourists alike can enjoy a film under the stars.

Despite being watched by thousands and appreciated by all, even those asking for the big grey truck to be moved, the event’s future could be in question if a sponsor can’t be found for 2010.

Kevin payed for it himself for the first four years, got a grant from Tourism after that and in the last four has found himself begging for sponsorship to keep the event going.

It would be a shame to see this great summer tradition come to an end over money. Even more so for the projector and truck that work so hard to keep its audience enthraled.

And the projector, the truck, and the screen – those vital ingredient in playing a film- they just sit there working away.

Despite technology that is nearly 50 years old they manage to keep the young, the old and everyone in between wrapped in the grip of the magic of the movies year in, year out.

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20
Jan

iPlayer Pick: 20 January

Inspired by the brilliant Watchification, the Telegraph iPlayer Pick of the Day and the Radio Times Downloads index I’ve decided to post my own iPlayer picks.

PNG version of this image
Image via Wikipedia

I don’t really get to watch much in the way of linear television to be honest – I’m either reading a book, catching up on DVDs, listening to audiobooks & podcasts or reading/writing blogs.

So the iPlayer is my saviour – that and (when it works) ITV Player. It is how I watch more or less ALL of my television. Sometimes I find shows I want to watch by catching the end or half of them in the kitchen while eating dinner – something I find them on iPlayer itself and other times I find them through the pick links I posted above.

So I’m posting my first pick link for you – I caught half of this yesterday while eating dinner and watched the rest over lunch today on the iPlayer.

It is the Panorama special on the USA health care system. I really enjoyed Michael Moore‘s Sicko but it was a little (ok a lot) one sided. A great piece of entertainment and a good piece of journalism when preeching to the choir BUT lacking slightly in balance.

This piece from the BBC at least tries to look at both sides of the story.

You can watch it on the iPlayer HERE.

Barack Obama takes over as US President with a promise to dramatically change America and make it a fairer place. He is inheriting the worst economic crisis in almost a century, and a country so unequal that 23,000 people die every year because they cannot afford basic healthcare.

To close the gap between rich and poor Obama will have to take on the might of the corporate world, which wields enormous influence in Washington. Can he change the world’s most powerful country, and should he?

Embed code generated using my PIP code tool – probably won’t work as it was a quick and dirty bit of code to make my life a little easier.

This service may also fail at any moment due to code changes on the BBC iPlayer site.

Speaking of technology, social media and the BBC – Panorama is actually a pretty good example of how to do it.

The age old, but ever brilliant BBC documentary strand – now presented by the tall one himself, Jeremy Vine, has blogs from its reporters, makes use of Twitter and of Delicious.

You can watch parts of or the whole of each weeks show and every show is available on the iPlayer for a year – unlike the seven days other shows are up for.

The only problem with the Panorama use of Delicious is that they use it to link to themselves and their own stories instead of the better use of linking to ideas and research.

What I’d like to see is for them to set a date/show title tag and then post delicious links to the google searches researchers made while working on the story, links to websites of organisations mentioned in the story etc…

It would be nice to see them reply more on Twitter as well. Instead of using it to say ‘look this is what we’re doing’ they should be engaging in conversation, speaking to their followers and generally making the story a discussion instead of just using Twitter (a social network) as a place to sell their wares.

But that’s another post altogether – in fact one created already by the BBC Internet Blog.

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29
Dec

A media year

Just under a year ago (three days under a year ago in fact) I wrote a blog post with the title ‘My Media Tips for 2008‘. As we’re now approaching the end of 2008 I thought it might be worth looking back.

So lets work our way through the original post, pointing out what I got wrong, what I got right and what I wouldn’t right now even on the bleakest of motivation days.

My Media Tips for 2008

Paragraphs from the original blog post are in quote boxes and my comments are directly below them. I’ll try to post a few tips for 2009 while I’m at it.

I think 2008 is going to be the Time-Shift year. I know people have been time-shifting for ages but this is the year it will get a LOT easier.

Well I hit that one pretty squarly on the nose – although to be honest even a monkey living in a remote part of the remotest island on the earth could probably have predicted that.

The BBC iPlayer has launched as a streaming service – complete with heavy promotion and people seem to be finding it fairly easy to use – ITV will probably heavily advertise ITV.com now as well and I’m hoping Channel 4 will drop the application and offer streamed shows through their website.

Well the iPlayer went from stregnth to stregnth, improved streaming quality and became the gold standard in on demand video – it also became properly mainstream.

ITV did indeed increase publicity of itv.com but not to a massive extent until the end of the year when they rebranded it ITV Player – expect a lot more from ITV in 2009 (god I sound like Mystic Meg).

Oh and Channel 4 dropped the 4OD application (OK they didn’t really drop it but it did become less important) and did introduce streaming video on demand through the website.

More of this in 2009 and hopefully a move to flash or at least silverlight streaming from Channel 4 and ITV – moving away from Windows Media. You never know – if the BBC Air Desktop App works out we may see ITV and Channel 4 versions of that.

iPlayer will also be launching through Cable and IPTV companies this year – BT and Virgin will be offering iPlayer shows over the air which will bring it to the attention of even more people.

Well iPlayer DID launch on Virgin and it seems to work pretty well (although I haven’t really tried it), it also launched on the iPhone, the Wii, PS3 and a selection of mobile devices (although if you have the Skyfire browser you can use it on almost any Windows Mobile device).

iPlayer will also be launched on BT soon and I predict that at some point in 2009 we’ll see the iPlayer on Apple TV (or equivalent) devices and on specially designed Freesat boxes.

We’re probably going to find out more about Kangaroo – the commercial version of iPlayer, ITV.com and 4OD combined. And I’ll carry on using SKY+ to avoid adverts.

It has been an interesting year for Project Kangaroo – a new chief who left for Microsoft, an anti-competive review, a whole host of complaints, a very limited beta launch and new start date in sight.

Oh and I’ve had to hand over control of Sky+ to my wife who regularly fills it with soaps, reality TV and other wonderful examples of programming excellence.

I now almost exclusively watch television through my computer – either live (using Zattoo, Livestation or the broadcasters own websites) or on demand.

But this will probably also be a year of more creative forms of advertising – as more people time-shift the pressure will be put on OfCom to allow commercial broadcasters to advertise in other ways – such as in vision adverts, product placements and fewer adverts shown more frequently during a show.

OfCom seem to be moving in this direction ualthoughgh we didn’t really see the launch of this in 2008 – I expect that won’t really start to come into force until 2010.

Although, after recent codes of conduct have been agreed on – we may well see paid for product placement introduced in selected shows in 2009.

I also think we’ll see podcasts grow in popularity, especially video podcasts with the increasing popularity of the iPod Nano (video).

Podcasts did grow in popularity but not nearly to the extent I expected them to – although an interesting trend of ‘talent’ producing their own shows did take off in 2008.

The BBC Trust will probably allow the BBC to publish video podcasts which will probably take the form of cut-down versions of TV shows they own the full rights to (Top Gear, Newsnight etc).

This will then prompt the commercial to up their game and start offering more video podcasts of their shows – maybe with embedded adverts to cover costs and make money.

Well I go this one wrong – I’m not even sure the BBC put video podcasts to the trust in 2008 – but it probably will come 2009 – either that or a deal with be struck with Apple to allow downloads of DRMd BBC video shows to the iPod (maybe with the licencing of Fairplay) that could be pulled in like a podcast thanks to RSS feeds.

However video podcasts DID become more popular in 2008 with the introducing of the iTunes Video Podcast section, an increasing number of original indie video podcast production companies (Rev3, ChannelFlip) and more commercial companies getting on board (Sky News, HBO).

I also think we’ll see a lot of fuss made over home grown children’s television in 2008 – money will be made available to the commercial operators to produce children’s television here in the UK and to develop British ideas.

There was a lot of fuss made over Childrens television, of regional news and of public service content as a whole – including a lot of talk about how to fund it.

As yet no real decision has been made but I expect something will happen on this in 2009 (whether it is actual money available or the promise of money at a set point in the future).

The money will either come from free spectrum or services for the commercial operators, a portion of the license fee, tax money or some other magical pot – but it will come.

There will also be talk, off the back of Australia planning to filter ‘unsavoury’ websites at ISP level, of the UK doing the same thing and of regulation of the internet as major UK broadcasters use it more.

There was a lot of talk but it never really made the mainstream forums – but that doesn’t mean it won’t next year – however I think it will be at European level as I don’t think there is stomach or desire for internet regulation in the UK.

Oh and a couple of quickies for 2009 – I think digital radio will be a big story, I think digital switchover will be a big story and also the decline of the newspaper industry.

What are your 2009 tips?

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3
Oct

Go On Dave an Alibi to Watch and Laugh Daily

There’s more to the headline above than an excess of capital letters that would have my English teacher steaming at the ears and some of the pedantic readers of bbc.co.uk/jersey knawing their teeth.

There is a reason I filled it with caps – you see it’s full of new television channel names – well one is an old television channel name – but it’s part of the same family.

The words in the headline that aren’t either a television channel name or part of one are ‘and’, ‘to’ and ‘an’.

Go On Laugh Daily (or G.O.L.D.), Alibi and Watch are all new channels (or at least re-brands of existing channels) that are being launched on 7 October by the UKTV network.

The UKTV brand will remain for the subject specific channels (at least for now). So that is Documentary, History, People, Style, Homes, Gardens and Food.

Dave is the other consistent – but that was given its new non-UKTV brand not very long ago and is already a ‘personality’ channel.

UKTV Gold, previously UKGold is set to become G.O.L.D. or Go On Laugh Daily – a channel moving from being an all round UK repeats network to a comedy network – that I’m guessing will play shows from around the world.

G.O.L.D. is on Sky 110 (laughdaily.co.uk)

GOLD

Drama seems to be evolving into Alibi – a network specifically showing crime dramas – its tag line is ‘The Deadliest Place on TV’.

Alibi is on SKY 132 (theperfectalibi.co.uk)

Alibi

And then there is Watch. tagline ‘simply good TV’ that seems to be the place that will include Richard and Judy.

Watch is on SKY 109 (justwatch.co.uk)

Watch

On first glance I’d say this is a womens network but actually it looks like it will include everything not included on the new look UKTV as well as a load of other stuff from around the world – as well as movies. This looks like its going to be one of my new favourite channels.

And it’s brilliant that these newly branded channels are creating a new identity, that they will make it easier to see some of the best programmes made (of all time and of recent years) but, and this is a big giant great huge but – what about the new stuff?

I mean it’s great that they are putting emphasis on showing great content but they are showing great content made by other broadcasters (with the exception of a few cheap to make shows).

At the moment the only big budget dramas, comedies and daring shows are being made by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

BBC is fully public service – funded by the licence fee. Channel 4 doesn’t have to make a profit as its state owned and ITV has the background of being the ‘third’ channel and the second major British network.

It also has a unique place as the third channel on all platforms so can demand more advertising revenue – and has that background to draw from.

Maybe we will start to see more dramas and comedies (original ones) coming out of the likes of UKTV, Virgin, Sky et al after digital switchover – but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Why make something new and spend huge amounts of money on a series that might not be successful when you could buy it in from the USA or Canada – when you guy buy a repeat from BBC or ITV or when you could make something relatively cheap but high impact that would get as good a ratings.

After all – in a advertising funded world where the advertising revenue is directly reflected by the number of viewers – you’ll do anything possible to get viewing numbers up for as cheaply as possible.

So if you can make a chat show that will get 2 million viewers but only cost £10k per episode and bring in £50k – you’re hardly going to spend £30k on a drama or comedy series (even a cheap one) that will get the same viewing figures and the same advertising revenue.

That is why the BBC is important – that is why incentivising ITV to keep making high impact dramas and comedies (as well as local news and childrens) is important and why some kind of public funding should be found for Channel 4.

Maybe the BBC could give the revenue from the sale of ‘formats’ to Channel 4. Not the whole of BBC Worldwide just the international format rights – so ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, ‘Weakest Link’ and even ‘Top Gear’.

I’m not saying give the SHOWS THEMSELVES to Channel 4 (especially not TopGear – that needs to stay on a commercial free network for Clarkson alone) but the revenue from international deals – oh and maybe a share of magazine and merchandising revenue on those shows as well.

Let the BBC keep the money from DVD sales of dramas, comedies and other shows – let it keep international sale rights for those shows – just give C4 the formats.

Just an idea. But also slightly off the point – public service broadcasting is essential to retain a high standard of local television commissions – to retain investment in British broadcasting and production as a whole.

If it were left to the market we would see lots of self help, chat shows and imports – with the occasional big budget drama or comedy every year – instead of the dozens of dramas and comedies we see today.

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18
Sep

What I need from a TV site

I want you to take a minute and think about something for me. It’s a simple question ‘what do you want from a TV channel website?’.

I’m not including children’s channels or news channel’s in this question – but specifically the general entertainment channels like BBC One, ITV 2, E4 and FOX.

I’m also not talking about the websites for a television SHOW – I’m talking specifically about the network portals.

I know there is an argument that suggests the concept of a ‘network’ is a bit of a waste of time online – as much as linear programming is – but you also need to look at the fact that multiple millions of people actually watch these networks and associate shows with them.

So that out of the way – what you’d want from a television network portal.

Here are a few of the things I’d have on my list: A list of shows on the network, the ability to watch the network live, the ability to watch the shows listed in my own time and a schedule of what’s on.

That is pretty much exactly what the team behind BBC /tv and all the separate TV network sites have achieved with their new re-launch.

All the new TV network pages are designed to a standard template (yes including BBC THREE) and have /programmes at their heart.

Every one has the ability to find out what’s on, it tells you what’s on right now and gives you quick links to watch what you’ve missed on the iPlayer.

BBC THREE and BBC FOUR both go one step further and give you the ability to watch the channel right there – live and according to the BBC Internet blog post – this is coming to BBC One and BBC Two soon.

The pages are exactly what you want from a TV network homepage – they don’t contain to much information, they let you watch the shows they have on the network and are easy to find your way around.

TV

One

Two

Three

Four

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7
May

Hello Freesat

In my house I currently have three television – not including the giant, multi-layered, worlwide content rich television called … my computer. Read moreRead more

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