Category: Geographic

TV, Music and Marketing: Their Current Response To Digital Media (pt 2)

We know Tech is hitting all media businesses, but how are they currently responding?

Howard Scott covered North One TV yesterday; today it’s Sony BMG; and the final piece tomorrow is Kempster, their work with European football and the conclusion.

Highlighting through italics are ours.

ESA Sponsorship Forum 2007 Talking Tech Write UpDuncan Bird, VP of Futures, Sony BMG
Duncan Bird is an ex-Leagas bod, just like me – so he’s got to be cool, right?

For Duncan, change in anything is good and is often the best way to learn. For Sony BMG, the music industry is in a state of constant change, and as an example, the Justin Timberlake album (got you copy yet? No? Strange!) sold in 71 different formats. That’s a big change from CD, Tape and Vinyl!
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Big Brother Slashes Phone Voting Costs: What About Previous Years?

Big Brother Slashes Phone Voting CostsThe dreadful television programme, that those involved have tried as hard as possible to turn in to an ‘event’, Big Brother, comes on to some UK TV screens tonight. That isn’t of interest really, is it?

What is worth noting is how Channel 4 and Endemol have dropped the price of the phone calls that the show relies on to provide the votes that influence if contestants stay or leave the programme. Being ‘interactive’ with the audience they call it.

By way of a background to the price reductions, it’s relevant to understand that the UK has seen a large and considerable kerfuffle about how TV stations and production companies have been ripping off viewers who have called in to premium rate phone lines. Often the calling contestants had no chance of winning.

Big Brother Slashes Phone Voting CostsThe call price drops
This year eviction votes on Big Brother will drop from 50p per call to 25p (from a BT landline). Of this, 10p will go to charity and the reminder to Channel 4 for ‘administrating’ the calls.

Big Brother SMS voting will be dropped completely.

External vote monitoring
There have for years been unsubstantiated claims that the voting for Big Brother has been rigged by the production team to try and spice up things when it’s looking too flaccid.

This year the voting will be monitored by an external law firm.

Summary: Investigate Previous Years Voting
All of these changes that are being made around Big Brother appear like they’re being made to clear the decks before this years show.

With these moves, especially the SMS voting, is it just us who thinks that there are questions to be answer about the previous years voting, if those votes cast were properly taken account of and whether income generated over those years was legitimately gained.

First Tuesday Returning: Warning Bubble Burst 2.0

First Tuesday Returning: Warning Bubble Burst 2.0A little bird has told us that they have received an email from Christer Holloman of … shock, horror … First Tuesday. It’s time to sell up and ship out of any and all Internet-touching businesses as Christer tells all that they are to carry out a “secret launching event in London after the summer.”

First Tuesday, the Bastard child of Nick Denton (See picture) and a couple of others, quickly became a byword for greed in London back at the end on the ’90’s.
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Big Brother UK Drops SMS Voting Completely

Big Brother Drops SMS Voting CompletelyFor years Big Brother has been actively encouraging the audience to vote using SMS messages from the mobiles.

No more. They’re completely dropping the SMS voting, claiming “the mobile phone operators cannot process the votes within a time frame suitable for the voting procedures on the programme.”

When did this change? Is this a new development?

The failure of SMS voting is NOT news
I remember speaking to the tech wizards at the Australian Broadcast Company (ABC) back in 2004 at Broadcast Asia who told that they decided that they could not legitimately use SMS voting as the delivery of it was not reliable enough, especially if there was a need to do it within a certain time period – like gathering votes before a deadline.

They opted for another mobile-based technology, that although slightly more involved for the viewer to use, at least gave a truthful representation of what was going on.

TV, Music and Marketing: Their Current Response To Digital Media

We know Tech is hitting all media businesses, but how are they currently responding?

Howard Scott went along to a meeting, Talking Tech, organised by the European Sponsorship Association to investigate the current state of play – covering the world of TV, Music and entertainment marketing.

Today’s piece covers North One TV; tomorrow, Sony BMG; and the final piece, Kempster, their work with European football and the conclusion.

Highlighting through italics are ours.

ESA Sponsorship Forum 2007 Talking Tech Write UpESA Talking Tech
Another day, another conference. A couple of weeks back I attended the ESA Sponsorship Seminar entitled Talking Tech. Even though the title was “Talking Tech” I didn’t let that put me off.

It was aimed at the Sponsorship industry with a slant to how digital tools (lots of reference to new media, but is it still new?) have/can/will later that side of the marketing business.

The panel of speakers for the event had some interesting people on board, and in my usual style I’ll go through each of them in turn now.
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Blathering Work Bloggers Risk The Boot

Blathering Work Bloggers Risk The BootMore than a third of employees who keep personal blogs risk getting the boot from their job by posting information about their employer, workplace, or colleagues, according to new research.

In a YouGov report commissioned by human resources firm Croner, employees were asked if they were down with the whole blogging thang, and if they were, they were asked to detail what kind of information that they were sharing with the world.
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Two Way TV Acquired By Ingenious

TwoWay TV acquired By IngeniousLong-lasting interactive TV and new media company, Two Way TV has just announced that Ingenious Media Active Capital Ltd (IMAC) have bought 84.3% of their shares – a controlling stake – which Two Way TV are reporting as costing “up to £5.34m.” This would value the company at approx £6.33m.

Two Way TV pioneered interactive TV in the UK, describing themselves as “a leading interactive TV production company,” supplying many of ITV’s red button services on major shows like X Factor and Dancing on Ice, as well as SMS premium text games on shows such as Love Island.

When we spoke to Two Way they said they were pleased to be working with Ingenious, particularly because of the other companies under Ingenious’ wing.

The investment will be used to expand its creative and production teams for interactive entertainment shows and open a new office in Los Angeles to target the rapidly emerging US market.
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Sky Probed Over ITV Share Holding

Sky Probed Over ITV Share HoldingThe UK Department of Trade and Industry has referred Rupert Murdoch’s Sky purchase of nearly 18% share holding in major UK broadcaster ITV.

In the words of Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, “My decision reflects consideration of the reports I have received from both the Office of Fair Trading and Ofcom and of other representations I have received about this matter.”

This action won’t be unexpected at Sky, Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading recommended this back on 27 April this year.

Sky has released the following statementSky notes today’s announcement by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. We look forward to engaging with the Competition Commission as the ongoing regulatory process enters its next phase.Translation: Bring it on.

Optiarc BD-M100A: Blu-ray Burner First From Sony NEC

Optiarc BD-M100A: Blu-ray Burner First From Sony NECOptiarc, the product of the joined Sony and NEC’s optical storage divisions, has released the BD-M100A, their first Blu-ray Burner.

It burns single and dual layer BD-R and BD-RE Blu-ray discs, giving a storage capacity of up to 35Gb and 50 Gb respectively. It also supports BD-ROM and BD-AV discs.
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