Jeremy Clarkson Archive

Time to pay for premium content?

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: August 3, 2009Posted in: General, NewsTags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Time to pay for premium content?

Jeremy Clarkson writes a column for The Sunday Times, in fact he writes two as he writes a motoring column and an opinion column, although the only real difference is a bit of a car info at the end of the motoring one.

You can read both these columns and a fairly substantial archive on the Times website – published first thing in the morning on a Sunday, every Sunday – often before most people will have seen the paper.

He also writes a column for The Sun, another News International product, this column goes out every Saturday and there was a pretty substantial archive for that one as well.

The big difference between the two, other than the style of writing Clarkson employs for the different target audience, is the fact that eventually the Sunday Times columns will end up in a book.

Well, that was the big different until the end of June when The Sun decided there was value in NOT putting Clarkson, and a number of other celebrity columnists, on their website.

Image representing Rupert Murdoch as depicted ...
Image via CrunchBase

Instead there was a banner on the front page on a Saturday telling people to buy The Sun to read his column which is a pretty interesting development.

What with News International owner, Rupert Murdoch, announcing an end to ‘free content’ on the web, the removal of the Clarkson columns from The Sun website raises a few interesting ideas about how Newspapers can monetise online.

You see I don’t think any paper will be able to make any money out of ‘general news’, what with the BBC, Google, Yahoo, AP, Channel 4, Sky and ITN – it’s just not going to happen. Also it only takes on to give it open and ad-supported (say hello Guardian) and the whole thing falls apart anyway.

No, I think papers will probably keep their news content free and open but instead charge for the premium stuff and this will work even better if can take out a subscription to multiple papers in one go – or even multiple services.

For example, News Corp/News International is in a prime position to put their premium stuff behind a pay wall – the celebrity columnists, The Sunday Times, the News of the World, games, The Literary Supplement, The Rich List, The Educational Supplement…

If you said ‘look here is a lot of free news content you don’t have to pay for but if you pay a £5/month premium subscription you will get a digital edition of the paper and access to all this extra content – put video behind the pay wall as well and maybe even the ability to comment.

In fact the comment thing alone may be enough to get people paying – if I come across a story with a load of comments that REALLY irritate me I NEED to respond – put the ability to respond behind the pay-wall and you’ve got a new customer.

Ideally I’d pay a fixed amount per month for access to premium content across all the newspapers – say an extra £10 a month for across the board access and even more ideally this would be an ‘added extra’ on my broadband account.

If I could pay my ISP an extra £10 for full access to every national newspaper (assuming they go behind a pay-wall) I would rather do that and let them pay it on to the papers, than pay the papers directly.

I think it is inevitable that some of the content we’ve taken for granted as being free will go behind a pay-wall eventually, I’m not sure it is the best model, but if they all do it I think people will get used to it as a new ‘norm’ eventually.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Top Gear back in June?

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: February 9, 2009Posted in: General, MediaTags: , , , , , , ,

Top Gear series 13 returns to BBC Two on Sunday 21 June 2009. Find out more…

A post by Sonyxxx16 on the FinalGear forums – showing a photo of the latest Top Gear magazine seems to confirm a June return for everyones favourite entertainment show featuring forms of transportation.

Or – Top Gear.

The first place to find out about new Top Gear always seems to be at the end of the presenters columns in the TG mag.

I’ll post a scan as soon as I can. No confirmation on topgear.com yet though – so could change and they DID get the date wrong last time.

But who will be the Stig.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Absense of journalists? Unmask the Stig!!

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: February 2, 2009Posted in: General, NewsTags: , , , , , , ,

Ok so lets kick this blog post off with a list of headlines and their associated links. Then I probably won’t need to write anything else as you will have worked out what I’m talking about already.

The Sun: Stig Identity is revealed

The Sun: Clarkson names Top Gear’s Stig

The Sun: Fans blitz net in search of Stig ID

The Sun: Top Gear’s FOUR Stigs

The Mirror: The secret identity of Top Gear’s Stig revealed

Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: The eight drivers behind Top Gear stunt driver The Stig’s famous racing whites

Daily Mail: The Stig(s) unmasked: Top Gear use FOUR different mystery test drivers

The Guardian: Top Gear’s Stig: the truth is out there

The Independent: Top Gear’s Stig is unmasked

Telegraph: Top Gear: Rumours that Ben Collins was The Stig started on YouTube more than a year ago

Telegraph: Top Gear staff dress as The Stig

Telegraph: Stig unveiling could spell end of TV career

Telegraph: Stig mystery reignited amid claims he is played by four actors

Telegraph: The Stig’s true identity is still a mystery, claims Top Gear’s James May

Telegraph: Stig mystery reignited amid claims he is played by four actors

Telegraph: Top Gear’s The Stig ‘played by eight drivers’

Telegraph: The Stig mystery: Top Gear’s James May says ‘harmless fairytale’ like Harry Potter and Dr Who

Telegraph: The Stig: Jeremy Clarkson’s new revelation

Identity of Top Gear’s The Stig revealed as B———

Have you got the idea yet? I was going to write a long winded piece about how the lack of journalists, or at least the increase in workload for journalists has led to an increase in silly quick hit stories.

I’ve fallen foul of it myself – having written a number of stories for the sake of ‘filling the gap’ until I’ve been able to properly research and write up a full original feature.

But I decided that the subject had been covered to death so would pick a single ‘quick hit make word story’ and link to all the newspapers that have covered – the Telegraph seem to have really sunk their teeth into the juicy, pointless morsel.

Do I want to know who the Stig is? does it really matter who the Stig is? Do fans really care who the Stig is? No – not really.

But it has got lots of people talking about it, I’ve just linked about eight times to The Telegraph and other newspapers thus increasing their Google Juice and a number of forums, blogs and twitteres have been doing much the same since the story first broke weeks ago.

Still – last word to TopGear.com – who’d have thought Graham Hill was the Stig!

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Clarkson on Twitter?

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: January 5, 2009Posted in: General, New MediaTags: , , , , ,

The latest bandwagon our illustrious British celebrities (especially the cooler ones) seem to be jumping on is that bastion of micro content – Twitter.

Stephen Fry is a regular Twitterer and has something like 30 thousand plus followers – mainly because he is actually a very good twitterer with interesting things to say.

fry_body

Robert Llewellyn is also on Twitter (AKA Kryten) with something like 2000 followers and, killing time before getting back on the air in a couple of months, Jonathan Ross (under the username Wossy).

And now (although I’m still not convinced it is actually him – a post on the Top Gear Transmission blog would go a long way to proving it) none other than Jeremy Clarkson has found himself tweeting away.

In fact I WILL need to see a post on Top Gear.com to believe it really actually truly is him – until then I’ll read it as if being written by a Clarkson/Top Gear fan.

clarkson_body

When I first checked this morning JC had around 250 followers – at the time of writing this blog post (12:45) he has nearly 550 and it seems to be increasing every time I refresh.

His first post was on 19 November as was the second but then nothing else until 29 December. There have been new posts every couple of days since then with five so far today alone.

If this really is Clarkson he may well be the first Brit to beat the American Technorati into the top five on Twitterholic – although Stephen Fry might just beat him to it.

What other British geeky celebs would you like to read on Twitter?

FFS leave the BBC alone

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: November 10, 2008Posted in: EntertainmentTags: , , , , , , ,

OK so I’ve avoided the Sachs-venetian blind bollocks on the grounds that I don’t really care and think the whole thing has been blown completely out of all proportion.

So two comedians, known for sailing close to the wind were left in a studio together to record a show they KNEW wasn’t going out live.

They got themselves a little bit (ok a hell of a lot) over excited and over stepped the taste and decency mark – even I accept that fact.

What I don’t accept is the horrific disproportionate response to it – first the show should NOT have been aired – the fact that it was should have led to the SUSPENSION of the senior producer responsible for approving it.

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross should have been made to give a public apology and that should have been the end of the matter.

But it wasn’t, it became the TOP SODDING STORY across all media for about a week! And to a certain extent is still a major story now – and I can just imagine what the Daily Mail will do the week Jonathan Ross comes back.

Lets take a look at a few numbers – originally two people complained about the broadcast – after the broadcast had gone out. This is about right and proportionate – you’ll get at least one or two people complain about every show that goes out.

Then when the Mail on Sunday complained about it in print another 10 thousand people complained – about the fact that it had happened even thought they weren’t ‘directly’ offended by it.

The Daily Mail and every other media followed the Mail on Sundays lead and in the end about 30 thousand people complained.

So far there are over 50 thousand people on a Facebook group called ‘SUPPORT RUSSELL BRAND & JONATHAN ROSS’ and more in other related groups.

My biggest concern about this whole sorry episode is that, instead of making sure producers are told to follow the current (and very strict) procedures for ALL SHOWS – there will be a sanatising, a Mary Whitehouse-esq watering down of the BBC.

My fear is that the corporation will be forced into a corner that leaves it too scared to take risks or to do anything different – fortunately I don’t think that fear will be realised.

I think there are enough intelligent people to see through the Daily Mail’s thinly veiled bitter little attack on the corporation – but who knows.

I’ve restricted myself from posting what I really wanted to post – on the grounds of taste and decency and I’ve resisted posting the YouTube video of the whole Sachs-pogoda segment.

Top Gear

What I will say though is that the Daily Mail’s latest target – Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear seems to be back firing.

There are a LOT of very fierce Top Gear supporters and fans out there – covering a seriously wide range of people (young, old, socialist, conservative, male, female…).

The DM wrote an article the other day complaining about Jeremy Clarkson apparently giving the finger to a police officer in the most recent Top Gear (the American Roadtrip).

First this is bollocks and taken out of context (it was just a funny segment in a scripted show that was having a laugh and taking the piss) and secondly – who gives a flying one – sometimes people just need to lighten up and learn to laugh.

If you don’t like it (and they clearly don’t like Top Gear as they complain about it so much – although they do watch it every week for some reason) don’t watch it – Strictly Come Prancing about in sequins is on BBC One at the same time after all.

Interestingly – this article seems to have disappeared from the Daily Mail website – interesting given the volume of anti-Daily Mail comments I read on the article before the story was pulled.

I think the Mail may well be pushing people more in favour of the BBC and the licence fee with their constant whinging and complaining – instead of making people against it (which seems to be their goal).

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

This is disturbing…

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: November 5, 2008Posted in: GeneralTags: , , , , ,

There’s a show on BBC THREE called Coming of Age, if you live in the UK you can watch the most recent episode on iPlayer now.

If you haven’t seen it then it’s a slightly odd (ok very odd) teen comedy set in aj sixth form college centered around a group of odd mates – think Skins but surreal, funny, off the wall and a 1970s style inuendo laced laughfest..

One of the main characters is a cardboard cut out of Jeremy Clarkson – another of the main characters talks to him and responds in Jeremys voice when nobody else is around.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dvkkm

Anyway – in this weeks episode two other characters (virgins wanting to have sex but not sure) are sitting in the shed with the ‘Clarksonator’ and the boy says ‘lets do it now’ and the girl responds ‘I can’t with him watching.

See this picture:

Jeremy is watching

So boy gets up and says ‘its ok i’ll turn him around:

Turn around

Eeeeeeeeeeeek – girl says ‘That’s disturbing’ and boy agrees:

That's disturbing

And then covers Jezzas modesty with a hat:

Modesty with a hat

Oh and then later first boy that talks to Jeremy gets a bit lonely while his girlfriend is out with a Russian boy and um…

Top Gear

Top Gear returns 2 November

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: October 22, 2008Posted in: MediaTags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Also known as The big and shiny pre Top Gear series 12 post.

Can I just say, before I go ANY further ‘TOP GEAR IS NEARLY BACK’ WHOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO

OK I appreciate your patience in letting me get that out of my system. Now lets get on with the post and talk about Top Gear instead of screaming in anticipation.

Series 12 (Sunday 2 November 2008)

I do have a full and detailed post planned that will look at some of the things we know will be in the next series of Top Gear – will include lots of fan love and man crushing and will hopefully be very exciting and informative.

I’ll even post about the new website when it launches later this week AND the fact that you can now buy Top Gear series 10 on iTunes – but only in the US and in a cut down form with different music.

While you’re waiting why not check out the Transmission blog on topgear.com or the Final Gear forums – that’s where I’ll source my info from anyway.

In the meantime here is the trail that’s been doing the rounds on BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Three for the past few days.

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Further milking of the cash cow

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: October 6, 2008Posted in: GeneralTags: , , , , , , ,

Stig CowChristmas is coming and the Stig is getting stuffed. Actually its just a doll version but the message is still very much the same.

I’m still not 100% certain of the timing of the start of series 12 of Top Gear – it’s either at the end of this month or the very start of next – either way it will finish near Christmas.

On the flip side the timing of a new licensing partnership between BBC Worldwide and Wow! Stuff that will see a range of new TopGear toys released by Autumn 09 – is well planned.

The deal will see a doll of the The Stig made as well as other toys, gifts and gadgets for the already very well milked hit show.

But I would rather this than advertising. It’s better that the BBC fill any funding gap, and help keep the licence fee low by selling fringe marketing materials for its hit shows – than demand to carry advertising or go subscription based.

Initial product line plans include remote control cars, novelty gifts, desk top toys and a hotly anticipated doll of the Stig – all due to hit retailers in Autumn 2009.

Other new deals include a toy and game range for Marks & Spencer licensing to Peter Black Holdings, which will hit shops this October.

Apparently there is also a deal with Kinnerton Confectionary that will include celebration cakes (from January 2009) and childrens lunch bags/water bottles.

What this really proves though – other than the fact that JC has clearly and obviously just signed a new deal giving him more of the TG Wordlwide profits – is how many kids actually watch the show.

I know I sit down every Sunday and watch it with my five year old lad.

I guess we can now look forward to ‘the amazing adventures of Stiiiiig’ on CBBC within the next six months.

They’re changing Gear

By
Ryan Morrison
Published: September 30, 2008Posted in: Entertainment, General, TelevisionTags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Actually that should be that they’re changing Top Gear – but the headline didn’t really work if I added the word Top before the Gear.

Basically the point of the post is that there will very soon be a new look TopGear.com – not sure if the public service site will be getting a make-over but the commercial one certainly is.

It looks pretty good – from the looks of the beta we’re in for wood panelling backgrounds, glassy effects and very web 2.0ey fonts and colours.

Top Gear Cars
See another picture of the homepage at the bottom of this post v

They seem to be taking the social media thing a lot more seriously as well – they’re splitting the blogs up into: Horsepower, Transmission, The Foreman, The Cupholder, Fast and Dangerous and Sunday Afternoon Club (F1 blog that looks like it may be tied to the BBC F1 coverage somehow).

Playing around with the beta for a while it looks like the blogs are Wordpress hosted – which is an interesting departure for the BBC which uses MovableType for its public service blogs.

Interesting that the BBC public service blogs are hosted on a closed commercial platform and the BBC commercial blogs seem to be hosted on an open source free platform! Hmmm :)

Top Gear Cars

As well as the very good looking, branded blogs – which will see James May and Richard Hammond join Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Willman as TG.com contributors – there’s a new media player.

It isn’t exactly the same as the EMP (BBC Embedded Media Player) used on bbc.co.uk/topgear (for a start the volume only reaches 10) but it is flash based AND unlike the /topgear player – it actually lets you embed the video.

Top Gear Cars

Or at least that’s what the press release says: “nearly 300 new videos in a bright, big player that allows you to share or take away and out them on your own site.”

Although I haven’t actually been able to find the embed code yet – just a series of links to let you put the video on your social networking platform of choice. I’ll keep looking though.

You can of course just view the source code around the video player to get the embed code.

Episode Guide

There’s also something TopGear has needed for a while – something I started building myself (but got bored/lost interest/got to busy), something available in a very plane way on Wikipedia and something the good folks over at FinalGear are doing.

The most interesting feature of the Episode Guide on the new TopGear.com is the ‘The One With…’ feature – this makes it a lot easier for the more casual fan to find out about an episode.

Top Gear Cars

Top Gear Cars

There isn’t really much more to say about the Episode Guide – it primarily focuses on giving you video clips of that episode (which is what it’s all about really) and has a few little snippets of episode information.

For example: “The one where… Stig outruns a speed camera” and “This is also the one with… Clarkson reviews the Citroen Berlingo (and likes it) and Das Mazda6: Richard finds out if the Mazda6 can take on the Germans”.

Actually – quiz for you – without looking at the site can you tell me which episode this applies to: “The one with… all the poo”.

So back to the blogs

Instead of having the odd article (from the magazine) by Jeremy and James as an article under news and then the odd article by them in the blogs – they’ve now created a blog specifically for pieces by the ‘presenters’.

There is an outline of what each blog will do in the TopGear.com article about the new look site – due to launch on Thursday (although I’m sure it said Wednesday a week ago).

One of the blogs will be called ‘Horsepower’ and will include contributions from Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. There’s also the suggestion that they will respond to comments. Apparently “if what you write is interesting enough, they’ll respond to you.”

‘Transmission’ is all about TopGear the show and will be written by Executive Producer Andy Wilman – in much the same vain the existing TopGear Blog is written I imagine.

Then you have the blogs by the magazine team. ‘The Foreman’ is apparently going to be full of inside information and will tell you “everything the car makers would rather you didn’t know.”

Top Gear Cars

‘The Cupholder’ is the oppose and will be full of “is pure trivia, videos, links and general trivia from all over the world and all over the world wide web.”

Top Gear Cars

And then there is the non F1 racing stuff with ‘Fast and Dangerous’ and the F1 blog in the form of the ‘Sunday Afternoon Club’.

Speaking of the F1 Blog – apparently they “have big plans for that when the BBC takes over the F1 coverage next year.”

/topgear

Then there’s the BBC and the issue of what will happen to /topgear with the launch of the new look and fully interactive topgear.com.

On the FinalGear Forum – controlspecimen asked the question of the public service Top Gear site “So.. is bbc.co.uk/topgear defunct now?”

That’s an interesting question – the problem is that bbc.co.uk/topgear isn’t allowed to link to topgear.com for a lot of political reasons.

So there is a bit of a requirement/expectation that the BBC has at least some kind of public service site for one of its most popular shows.

I wonder whether they will just move it towards /programmes instead – a number of programmes just have their own branded /programmes site now. Seems to make more sense than building their own site.

But there might also be an expectation that /topgear is kept and includes advert free versions of all the videos on topgear.com for a UK audience.

More still

There’s also all the usual games, car news, car stuff and a car chooser.

Actually the car chooser is pretty cool – in stage one you tick a few boxes for what you want in a car, stage two you move a slider to show how much you want to spend.

Top Gear Cars

And in stage three you refine your choices.

Top Gear Cars

It then orders the cars and you can add as many as you like (I think) to your ‘car bar’ that you can then use to compare your shortlist and read a mass of technical details, see photos and read the TopGear review.

Top Gear Cars

It’s all very impressive and I can’t wait until its finished and live. It’s going to be great to have another place to regularly read the writings of Misters May, Clarkson and Hammond.

Oh and it looks like TopGear will be back on TV around 2 November – I’ll try and do a piece soon on what’s going to be in the upcoming series.

Speaking of which – there will also be a schedule that shows when TopGear is on TV – although most of the time it will just be repeating the word Dave over and over and over again.

Top Gear Cars

Top Gear Cars

Top Gear

Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

« Older Entries