THE Scots business magazine – Scottish Business Insider – is celebrating its 30th birthday, with a special edition this month.
The front cover features editor, Alasdair Northrop’s choice of the best covers from each of the last 30 years.
Northrop has been editor since September 2000, a year after the magazine was purchased from founders, Ray Perman and Alastair Balfour, by the publishers of the Daily Record, Trinity Mirror.
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BEGINS the Sunday Herald: “The Scotsman newspapers are to relocate to Orchard Brae House on Edinburgh’s Queensferry Road, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
“The downsizing will slash owner Johnston Press’s annual rental bill for the Edinburgh-based titles by around two-thirds.
“In December, this newspaper revealed that JP and the Scotsman titles were vacating the Irish-owned Barclay House on Holyrood Road after 15 years. The newspapers will be replaced as tenants by Rockstar North, the computer games firm behind the hit Grand Theft Auto series.”
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CONCLUDES an op ed in the Sunday Mail: “The [Scottish Press Awards] on Thursday showed again that Scotland’s journalists are among the best in the world. We should be allowed to remain so.”
The Sunday Mail was named Newspaper of the Year at the awards. Read more – here – about the paper’s view about the role of the Press and how it might be regulated.
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THE Edinburgh-based digital agency, Line Digital, has been acquired by rival, Blonde Digital – according to a media release posted, here, on allmediascotland.com.
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THE comms agency, Beattie Communications, has announced a record financial year – in a media release posted, here, on allmediascotland.com.
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A SPORTS radio scheduled to broadcast across Central Scotland has announced it will be launching a week today.
Says a media announcement: “Eklipse Sports Radio, Scotland’s newest radio station has confirmed that it is launching at 7am on Monday May 5 on DAB digital radio across the Central Belt, and worldwide on mobile and online.
“Launch presenter is Chris Kane, the former WestSound, Central FM and Talk 107 presenter and, after much discussion amongst the team, the first rock track to be played will be Bryan Adams’ Can’t Stop This Thing We Started!
“As is traditional with new radio station launches the first commercial to be played will benefit the station’s charity for 2014 – Prostate Cancer UK. The station is currently running a charity auction on eBay for the right for an advertiser to claim, ‘We were the first advertiser!'”
The announcement is tweeted by Eklipse, here.
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DO you report education? If yes, or are simply interested in education, you might want to begin following the newly-launched twitter.com/allEducationPR.
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THE Scots editor of The Sun, David Dinsmore, is the subject of a page-long interview in today’s Scotsman, here.
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BEGINS The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade, as he considers an op ed on allmediascotland, by The Herald and Sunday Herald political commentator, Iain Macwhirter: “That single phrase, about it being right for newspapers to have strong views ‘but not when they all have the same views’, goes to the heart of a wider debate about the relationship between ownership and editorial content.”
Read Greenslade’s piece here and Macwhirter’s here.
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SOME very well-known names in the Scottish communications sector have been lined up to speak at a conference in Edinburgh next month – among them, Clare Smith, head of marketing and PR at the Scottish Government; John Penman, former editor of Business A.M. and now director of Communications, Scotland & Insurance, Lloyds Banking Group; Juliet Simpson, managing director of Stripe Communications; and Scott Douglas, from Holyrood PR.
They are speaking at the Scotland and Northern Ireland conference of the Public Relations Consultants Association. Called DARE, the conference is taking place on the 29th.
Says the PRCA: “The DARE conference will provide an overview of the PR industry, and will address the perceived ‘talent gap’ in PR – according to the PRCA’s PR census 2013, 61 per cent of the PR industry in Scotland and Northern Ireland is female, and 41 per cent are aged 25-34. There will also be a presentation of this year’s PRCA Benchmarking survey – accurate and valuable insight into the industry, encompassing everything from staff salaries and development to key threats and opportunities to PR agencies and in-house teams.”
For more details, click here.
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INTERESTING paragraphs in an article in the Sunday Herald by Stan Blackley, former Yes Scotland campaign deputy director of communities. Considering how the official pro-Scots independence campaign might shift its approach, harnessing grassroots activity, he writes: “Why is the Yes campaign rarely seen in the consumer media? Imagine if Yes Scotland was a business selling a product called ‘Yes’. It would use every means and outlet available to promote positive awareness of that product, yet Yes Scotland continues to ignore the consumer media, instead limiting its media relations efforts to assuaging the demands of a small number of voracious and hard-to-please political journalists.
‘If the constitutional debate is so important, why is it not being covered by every one of the thousands of magazines on the news stand, especially as the Yes campaign holds within its body something or someone of interest to absolutely every one of them.
“To be fair, Yes Scotland has fought an uphill battle with a largely hostile and unhelpful media, but it has focused its efforts on the wrong media in the first place. The relationship between the Yes campaign and the media establishment is also shifting, with more and more editors and owners watching the closing of the gap in the polls and considering a shift to supporting a Yes vote. Some may now have even realised how an independent Scotland might benefit them and their business?
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BEGINS The Scotsman about the annual report, published on Friday, from its publisher, Johnston Press: “Ashley Highfield, the chief executive of Johnston Press which publishes The Scotsman, could collect a total pay package of more than £1.7 million depending on performance this year.”
Read the JP annual report, here.
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A FREELANCER at BBC Scotland is reportedly feared dead, in Barbados.
Says the BBC, among others, Jay Merriman-Mukoro had gone swimming but was later declared missing.
The BBC says: “While [in Barbados, Merriman-Mukoro] conducted an interview for a Commonwealth Games documentary for the BBC, in what was to be his directorial debut.”
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A NEW supplement was launched yesterday, by the Sunday Herald newspaper. The glossy-covered sundayheraldLife includes music, film, books, food, travel, fashion, theatre, travel, puzzles, property, crafts and a seven-days TV and radio guide.
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SEEN anything you think readers of www.allmediascotland.com should be made aware of? Then just send the weblink to here and we’ll do the rest. All suggestions gratefully received. We’re back at noon tomorrow.
PS Your Noon Briefing is a relatively new venture for allmediascotland.com. We are no longer going to report news, story-by-story. Instead, we are going to find content we hope will be useful, in the belief it will prove to be a more comprehensive service.
