media guardian story
New channels galore as BBC aims to rule the world - with help from Doctor Who and the Teletubbies
· New stations part of drive for £222m profits in 5 years· US is key target in scheme for global expansion
Leigh Holmwood and Owen Gibson
The Guardian
Monday October 29 2007
The BBC's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, is to launch a further 30 channels internationally, as well as a high-definition outlet and an on-demand service in the United States, as part of the next stage of its aggressive expansion plan.
The launches, which will be based on four thematic brands - BBC Entertainment, with shows such as Doctor Who; BBC Knowledge, featuring programmes such as Top Gear; BBC Lifestyle, with What Not To Wear; and children's outlet CBeebies, featuring the Teletubbies - come on top of 21 channels it already plans to launch before the end of this financial year.
There will also be a mixed-genre high-definition channel, while Worldwide also looks after the distribution of BBC World, the international news channel, which is due to relaunch next year. The 30 new channels will launch over two years from the beginning of April. They will join existing brands such as BBC America and BBC Canada to take Worldwide's channel count to nearly 70 in more than 160 countries.
The launches come as Worldwide, which has been given the task of doubling the profits it pumps back into the BBC to at least £222m within five years, is pushing for rapid growth across its businesses.
It recently bought a 75% stake in the Lonely Planet travel guide firm for around £75m as well as opening a production hub in India - the third of eight planned around the world, following offices in Australia and the US, which makes the highly successful American version of Strictly Come Dancing. Worldwide will also benefit from the controversial decision to allow advertising on the bbc.com website, which is due to bring in £70m a year, while it also plans 15 "passion-based" global portals based on brands such as Top Gear as well as a commercial version of its video on demand service, iPlayer.
The US is a key target of the expansion plans, with Worldwide aiming to build on the success of its BBC America entertainment channel with a simulcast high-definition version, which is due to launch early next year. BBC America is now available in 58m homes in the US - up nearly 15m in the last year - while a new strategy of concentrating on contemporary programming, at the expense of classic shows such as Benny Hill, has seen ratings reach their highest peak since 2003, with the drama Robin Hood recently pulling in its biggest ever audience.
Worldwide will also launch its four thematic channels as branded video on demand services through BBC America, while there are also plans to expand BBC World, which is currently only available in New York, across the country.
An American-focused news programme, BBC World News America, was launched on BBC World in the US and BBC America at the beginning of October, doubling that channel's news ratings. The programme has already made a splash with an interview with former president Jimmy Carter, in which he attacked vice-president Dick Cheney. Worldwide is looking to launch its channels in nearly every other major territory globally. The first in Europe are due in Poland in December, with four channels going live, with France, Germany and Scandinavia set to follow.
In Asia, Malaysia and the Philippines will follow 10 channels launched in the continent in just five months, while two are due to go live in Latin America this year. Launches are also planned in Africa, while the new high definition channel is planned for developed markets such as Japan, South Korea, Australia and Italy.
"There is not a market we are not looking at," BBC Worldwide's managing director of channels, Darren Childs, told the Guardian. The new channels would commission locally produced content as well as broadcasting core BBC shows.
"We are not doing expat channels any more," Mr Childs declared. He said the ambitious roll-out of channels would help build the BBC brand internationally as well as challenging the big American media companies such as Viacom, owner of MTV, and Turner, which broadcasts CNN.
"It will take us three to five years to take us to the scale of our competitors, but I am confident we can do it," he said.
"We are taking on the big American channel providers and there isn't another UK competitor who can."
He said the BBC's plans had been met with enthusiasm by global channel providers. "This is a brand-led business and we are trying to build the BBC brand overseas by understanding our audiences better than our competitors," he said.
Worldwide's aggressive expansion has met with criticism from some quarters, particularly from the online world over its plan to sell advertising on bbc.com. "Where it is not helping UK plc is in doing anything that has a negative impact on private businesses in Britain," said Hugo Drayton, chairman of the British Internet Publishers' Association.
"Selling ads is not very helpful and is clearly detrimental to others." The BBC still wanted to "park its tanks on every lawn. It is too big and too insensitive to the needs of commercial operators."
Worldwide's managing director of digital media and director of strategy, David Moody, dismissed the concerns. "No business wants more competition. People want us to be only moderately successful but we have very clear instructions to go out and use our commercial returns to subsidise the licence fee."

i think this is a good idea of splitting their programmes into certain channels according to the genre of the programme. Financially it will also make them well known, not only here but in America too. overall i think it is a good idea!

Am i a marxist??
I think the Marxist views are true. the proletariat are being taking advantage of and exploited and they are unaware of the situation, and the borgeioise are taking advantage. i do agree that the media dumb down their media issues, especially the news on ITV, who sometimes include irrelevant stuff like about singers which is 'news' but there are more important things happening in the world.

Marxism
1. Difference between the Proletariat and Bourgeoisie?
Two types of bourgeoisie: the wealthy bourgeoisie who do not work themselves but employ others,eg, Bill Gates. Then there is the petty bourgeoisie,they have high status and employ people to work for them but also work themselves. the Proletariat are usually working class who get expoilted by the higher classes.

2: Difference between the ISA and RSA?
The ISA (ideological state apparatus) are institutions which pass down norms and values they are usually informal and many people are unaware of them, eg. religion, family and education. RSA (repressive state apparatus) still pass down norms and values but they are more formal for example the police.

Globalisation debate:
Dick and Dom are having a conversation about the issue of globalisation

Dick: i dont get it, whats wrong with globalisation?

Dom: people lick Murdoch, who own 40% of newspapers only puts what He wants to be in them, therefore we are forced to think what he thinks.

Dick: everyone can think for themselves, you can buy the other 60% of newspapers or just make up your own mind.

Dom: its like the hypodermic needle model, people are fed info through the news and people think the news is trustworthy so they believe it, especially Sky News which is owned by Murdoch.

Dick: so we have a hegemonic ideology within the media, but if people cant make up their own minds that just makes them dumb! we can make up our own opinions

Dom: people who dont know much, for example, people who dont live in England may not know as much as we do about england, so when they hear something on the news about england, they might believe it, even if it is rubbish, therefore, these monopolies have restricted our choices!

media guardian article 3

'Upset' Ant and Dec give profits to charity after phone-in scandalJames Robinson, media correspondentSunday October 21, 2007The Observer
ITV stars Ant and Dec last night made an unprecedented apology over rigged phone-in votes in a competition on their programme, and announced that they would donate profits from their next series of Saturday Night Takeaway to charity.
In a statement, Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly said: 'It is important to us that people understand that none of the shows highlighted in the findings of ITV's independent review were made by our production company, Gallowgate, and that there was no financial benefit to us from the phone lines within those shows.
'Our roles as executive producers are purely creative ones. We are not involved in running the phone lines, the logistics of the competitions or selecting winners.
'We are deeply upset about what the review uncovered. However, we welcome the full disclosure of these problems, not least because we can be sure that our viewers have the opportunity to get their money back.'
They had spoken to ITV chairman Michael Grade about the review's findings and were confident that ITV would not allow the problems to be repeated.
Grade is under increasing pressure this weekend to force the resignations of those involved in the systematic rigging of phone-in programmes. He said he would have resigned if he had been chief executive of ITV when the rigging took place. But, unlike Peter Fincham, who resigned as Controller of BBC1 after a row over a documentary about the Queen, no one at ITV has left.
The Observer can reveal that the heads of Britain's biggest broadcasters met last month to discuss the crisis. BBC director-general Mark Thompson, Grade, Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan and Jane Lighting, his opposite number at Five, met at Broadcasting House on 26 September.
The summit was called to discuss how to restore public trust in broadcasting and hammer out a set of best practices. Sources say they could lead to the introduction of an industry-wide code of conduct.
Last week, an independent report by auditor Deloitte found that several ITV shows, including The X Factor, failed to count viewers' votes cast after lines had closed. It also found that production staff at Saturday Night Takeaway, which was heavily criticised by Deloitte, routinely ignored poll results on editorial grounds. The company has promised to reimburse viewers and said the affair is likely to cost it £18m.
At last month's meeting, how to handle the fall-out from recent scandals was also raised. 'There was a feeling that the "drip, drip" of revelations was having a negative effect and we wanted to see if there was anything we could do to mitigate that,' said one source. He emphasised there was no attempt to co-ordinate last week's announcements. Grade reacted angrily to an allegation by Liberal Democrat spokesman Don Foster that the decision to publish Deloitte's report on Thursday, when the BBC revealed 2,500 job losses, was an 'attempt to bury bad news'.
News of the meeting comes as the Serious Fraud Office confirmed it had asked industry regulator Ofcom to hand over documents relating to its investigation into GMTV, the breakfast TV franchisee, after receiving complaints from the public.
GMTV, which is 75 per cent owned by ITV, was fined a record £2m by Ofcom this year after admitting that millions of viewers taking part in phone-in competitions entered after lines had closed.

i think it should go to charity because sooo many programmes are doing this, 'without knowing'. i think it is done by purpose and when they get sussed they say its an accident etc, of course they know whats going on behind everything. majority of phone ins should be going to charity anyway, its not as if ITV need that much money.

Bertelsmann AG is a transnational media corporation founded in 1835, based in Gütersloh, Germany. The company operates in 63 countries and employs over 100,000 workers (as of June 30, 2007).

It is now the second- or third-largest global media conglomerate in terms of revenue. It has over 76,000 employees. Its holdings encompasses book and magazine publishing, film and music recording, online services and other interests.

Bertelsmann consists of 6 corporate divisions:
RTL Group, a European broadcaster
Gruner + Jahr (a magazine publisher, the biggest in Europe)
BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group, which mainly consist of 50 percent in Sony BMG)
Random House, the world's largest trade book publisher

Direct Group, the world's largest book and music club group
arvato, an international media and communications service provider

In 2004, BMG and Sony entered a 50-50 joint venture. BMG Music Publishing, the world's third largest music publisher, stayed owned by Bertelsmann and became the world's largest independent music publisher. As of 2005, Sony BMG's share of the music market stands at 21.5%.

Bertelsmann made headlines on 2002, when it announced it would acquire the assets of Napster for $8 million.

It holds 75% of magazine publisher Gruner & Jahr. Bertelsmann has a controlling in RTL, the Luxembourg-based broadcaster (22 television stations and 18 radio stations across Europe).

Kirandeep & Hammad

Holby criticised for binge drinking scene

Mark SweneyThursday October 4, 2007MediaGuardian.co.uk

Holby City: criticised for a scene in which two characters down shots of tequila.
Drinks' industry body the Portman Group has made official complaints to media regulator Ofcom and the BBC over an "irresponsible" scene in Holby City promoting binge drinking.
The Portman Group, the eight-strong industry body that has members including Diageo, Carlesberg and Stella Artois-parent Inbev, made the complaints about a scene featuring two medics who "down" five shots of tequila in a bar after a stressful day at work.
The industry body is accusing the programme of showing alcohol misuse and a "highly irresponsible portrayal of excessive and rapid drinking".
The scene also implied that their boozing would lead to a sexual encounter, argued the Portman Group.
"We appreciate that programme makers want to mirror some aspects of real life but they should avoid the encouragement of harmful, rapid and excessive drinking," said David Poley, chief executive of the Portman Group.
"We would not advocate censorship, nor deny that storylines of alcohol misuse can be used to good and positive effect. But in this case, the characters drank far too much and the harmful consequences were not shown".
The Portman Group argued that if an alcoholic drinks producer were to encourage excessive drinking or suggest an association with sexual success, it would be a clear breach of the alcohol advertising and marketing rules.
"There are strict controls on alcohol advertising and marketing but the impact of these rules is being diluted by irresponsible programming," added Mr Poley.
A BBC spokesman said: "Holby City takes the issue of the negative effects of alcohol abuse very seriously. On occasions when it does deal with alcohol within a storyline we always seek to handle the issue sensitively.
"The series is in the middle of a storyline in which a key character, Kyla, has spiralling problems in her personal and professional life because of alcohol - a storyline that fully and realistically depicts the negative impact of alcohol dependency in the workplace.
"Kyla has now been seen to seek help for alcoholism and the audience will see how she fares on the road to recovery."
From the start of next year, a new rule in the Portman Group's Code of Practice will also prevent the encouragement of rapid or down-in-one drinking