Second-year journalism student, Sian Lower, of Edinburgh Napier University, takes a look at the media stories making the headlines today.
It’s a very quiet day for the media...
In the Guardian’s media supplement, James Robinson and Mark Sweney comment on the new ITV boss Adam Crozier (page 1): “The appointment of Adam Crozier, the former Royal Mail chief executive who ran Saatchi & Saatchi, as ITV boss, one of the most powerful jobs in television, illustrates the influence that the image-makers now bring to bear. Why have the commanding heights of the British broadcasting industry fallen into the hands of a group of slick advertising men? Partly because, like chocolate bars or deodorant sprays, there are so many TV channels to choose from, and success in a crowded marketplace depends on differentiation.”
On page 7 of The Scotsman, City editor, Martin Flanagan, also writes about Crozier (his financial situation that is): “Adam Crozier is in line to become Scotland’s top earner with a total pay package of £15 million when he jumps ship at the Royal Mail for troubled broadcaster ITV, it was revealed yesterday.”
The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour (page 23) talks politics: “The Conservatives claimed yesterday that they were willing to loosen BT’s grip on the local telephone network and use parts of the BBC licence fee to deliver ‘superfast’ broadband to the majority of Britain’s homes by 2017.”
Peter Tatchell also writes about the BBC in the Guardian’s media supplement (page 6): “The BBC decision to commission research into its portrayal of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people is a welcome, if somewhat belated, initiative. It comes in response to two decades of sustained – and often ignored – criticism of the BBC by LGB licence payers, journalists, campaigners and media analysts.”
On page 6 of the supplement Ben Quinn writes: “The newspaper FirstNews is planning to take on the BBC by launching its own weekly internet-based television current affairs show aimed at 10-15 year-olds, while SO! - a magazine created by teenagers and distributed in schools and shops - is expanding into regional editions.”
In other news:
* ‘Guardian Writers Consider what the iPad Means for Different Sectors of the Media Industry,’ page 3, media supplement.
