The BBC has announced its presenting team for next year’s London Olympics. No surprises here, as Gary Lineker, Claire Balding and Sue Barker will head up proceedings as Auntie gets sporty. You can breathe a sigh of relief though – Mark Lawrenson’s name isn’t mentioned anywhere. (Source: MediaGuardian)
The big question facing Midlands’ journalism
It’s a tough question, but the National Union of Journalists is set to try and answer it: is journalism in the Midlands dead? Job cuts abound, including at the BBC and regional publishers, and the NUJ has called a public meeting to discuss the issue. “Excellent, hard-working journalists are being thrown on the scrap heap,” said general secretary Michelle Stanistreet, “and the citizens of this region are losing a vital check on the activities of local politicians and businesses”. As long as the debate doesn’t turn into a rendition of Monty Python’s parrot sketch, it’ll be interesting to hear the union’s conclusion. (Source: MediaGuardian)
Stop arguing about Clarkson and watch Stewart Lee
Despite strikes, the onset of winter and the gradual collapse of the Eurozone, Brits have been complaining in their droves about a man who makes Simon Cowell look fashionable. Yes, Jeremy Clarkson hit the headlines again, just in time for his annual Christmas book, a collection of his erudite thoughts. You can read what our Barny de Hoedt thought of the Clarkson furore here, but in the meantime we leave you with a snippet of Stewart Lee, explaining his own thoughts of the Top Gear troublemakers:
The Jeremy Clarkson furore boils down to this: the Unison-led attack on the popular Top Gear presenter is the PR own goal of the year.Read the full story
BBC Worldwide has made its flagship motoring show Top Gear available to rent on Facebook, as it continues to test the water of charging for access to programming. Read the full story
Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has hit back at claims by Nissan that the programme misled viewers with its “unfair” test drive of the Leaf. Read the full story
BBC Worldwide is inviting bidders for its magazine division to make an approach before Christmas, according to Press Gazette.
The Corporation’s commercial arm has been given permission to sell off BBC Magazines, which includes Top Gear and Radio Times, by the BBC Trust.
The division’s portfolio is made up of around 30 mainly spin-off titles from popular television shows.
The Corporation wants to sell its magazine business to a single publisher. But it could form a new business with the partner organisation taking a majority share.
BBC Magazines, which is the fourth biggest magazine publisher in the UK, increased its pre-tax profits to £18.4m in its last financial year on turnover of £168.3m.
“The truth is that all that stuff – the Stig, the Tardis, the Blue Peter dog – does belong to the licence payer, and not to some opportunists who think they can come along and take a slice when they feel like it.”Read the full story
The BBC is taking book publisher HarperCollins to court in order to suppress the publication of an autobiography that threatens to reveal the identity of Top Gear’s The Stig. Read the full story
"The Daily Mail is being far too modest… the runaway success of the website owes very little to piggy-backing on 'the strengths of the newspaper'."
The Media Blog‘s Will Sturgeon credits Mail Online’s picture desk as the “engine room” of its booming growth after comScore named it the world’s biggest newspaper site.
