Articles by Ian Beaumont

Public radio taking over Classical radio

Published 22 September 2009

WGBH in Boston has announced that it has bought a classical music radio station in New England, WCRB on 99.5FM. So what you say, broadcasters buy other broadcasters? True, but…

Disney buys Marvel – more corporate conservatism?

Published 31 August 2009

Financial Times: Disney to buy Marvel for $4bn. Imagine this: you are webslinging across the New York city skyline, just like Spiderman. You swing round to see the famous Baxter…

Murdoch claims independent journalism threatened by “dominant” BBC.

Published 28 August 2009

BBC News: Murdoch attack on ‘dominant’ BBC So James Murduch, the head of NewsCorp in Europe, says a dominant BBC damages independent journalism in the UK. The hypocrisy of that…

Plymouth finally gets some radio justice

Published 23 July 2008

It seems hard to believe that it was back in September 2005 when this licensing process actually began. Back then, of course, Ofcom was looking for applicants for a new…

ITV regional cutbacks: devil in the details.

Published 9 July 2008

Broadcast Now reports that the director of ITV Regions, Michael Jeremy, has sent a letter to all staff in the regions detailing the timetable for redundancies and their plans for…

Ratings Review: BARB week ending 30th March 2008

Published 9 April 2008

There’s not much I can say about the latest set of numbers released publically on the BARB website. One story that garners my attention though, is that we have two…

CNN US broadcasting internationally.

Published 15 March 2008

I feel sorry for those who are living in Atlanta, Georgia, USA right now. Tornados are not fun. We in Cornwall just recently had storm to hurrican force winds dumped…

Dead And Buried?

Published 9 March 2008

Is DAB on the way out?

Ratings Review: BARB week ending 24th February 2008

Published 5 March 2008

There’s been very few things of interest to report in the ratings recently, but this week, there is at least one interesting story to report, and it comes in the…

GCap’s DAB debacle

Published 11 February 2008

As my colleagues here have been reporting here on the MediaBlog, GCap have annouced the sale of Xfm outside London, the closure of all GCap’s digital-only stations on the national…

Classic FM’s Simon Bates on US television!

Published 10 February 2008

If I were to say to you, Simon Bates, what does he do, you’d probably say, he presents Classic FM’s breakfast show and he used to be a BBC Radio…

Report talks down DAB radio, with dubious accuracy.

Published 29 January 2008

Enders Analysis have done something that the radio industry wanted them to do. A couple of radio bigwigs have been talking about a crisis in DAB digital radio, a crisis…

The Daily Mail and BBC bashing.

Published 27 January 2008

Every independent media commentator knows that the Daily Mail is a conservative newspaper with a well established line in BBC bashing. I have previously documented myself just how desperate the…

Ratings Review: week ending 13 January 2008

Published 25 January 2008

A bit later in the week than I usually post these, but here we go with another review of the latest publically released BARB ratings. First thing I’m going to…

Digital One suffers more closures

Published 12 January 2008

As my colleagues have already pointed out, DAB, or more precisely the Digital One multiplex, has lost two more stations. Oneword’s closure was not a big surprise, it was expected…

Daily Mail, Katie Derham and suspect reporting.

Published 6 December 2007

It’s not unusual for the words Daily Mail and suspect reporting to come up, although usually it has more to do with their ultra-conservative editorial stance, than their actual reporting….

Macquarie hands back Plymouth licence.

Published 29 November 2007

This is a story that I have been following since the first announcement of the second Plymouth licence. I was half expecting that Macquarie was going to stetch this one…

Ralph Bernard and words of wisdom… Not!

Published 26 November 2007

This one crossed the wires whilst I was at the RMC newsdesk, and once again, it had me shaking my head in pure disbelief at how out of touch with…

Verity Lambert 1935-2007

Published 23 November 2007

Verity Lambert is best known to those of us who follow the media and media history as the original producer of Doctor Who from 1963 onwards. But she started her…

The Fourth Channel at 25

Published 18 November 2007

A quarter century of Channel 4 and S4/C.

Katie Couric, a coat, a cold night, and channeling Dan Rather!

Published 17 November 2007

WTOP, the Washington DC all news radio station is reporting that Katie Couric has been caught on video channeling Dan Rather, when he spent half an hour discussing whether his…

Top-slice Licence Fee money to save CITV?

Published 16 November 2007

Broadcast is reporting that the media committee has recommended that a portion of the licence fee be used to fund children’s programming. The problem with this is simple. Funding that…

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 4th November 2007

Published 15 November 2007

From a ratings standpoint, there are times when I question the strategy of having lots of channels doing similar things. Take Discovery for instance. Back in 1998, which is the…

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 28th October 2007

Published 8 November 2007

There are not many big stories in this week’s ratings, so I thought I would look at the little stories that populate the ratings most weeks, but we tend not…

Setanta Sports News launch date confirmed.

Published 5 November 2007

Just a few days ago I reported that Setanta Sports News would be added to the BARB figures on November 29th. Now, Digital Spy are reporting that November 29th has…

New channels being added to BARB figures

Published 3 November 2007

I regularly report on the ratings from BARB, and am always keeping an eye out for information about new channels launching. Well, the AGB Neilsen Media Research site reports on…

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 21st October 2007

Published 31 October 2007

It’s difficult to keep finding stories in the publically released ratings from BARB every week, but some of the numbers prove interesting, not just the ones I call the weekly…

Ratings Review: RAJAR Quarter 3 2007

Published 25 October 2007

The new set of RAJARs for June to September 2007 are out, and there are many interesting things to report. First to the BBC Local Radio stations, and their top…

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 14th October 2007

Published 24 October 2007

Well, the main story in the ratings this week, seems to be one of recovery for Sky One. For the second time in three weeks, the channel has increased its…

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 07 October 2007

Published 21 October 2007

A bit later than usual this week, because there are less obvious stories this week. The main one however, is Virgin 1. In it’s first week of operation, V1 manages…

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 30th September 2007

Published 11 October 2007

Well, we have some very interesting and unusual news from the latest publically released ratings figures from BARB. It was during this week that ITV2 premiered The Secret Diary Of…

October on Transdiffusion.

Published 7 October 2007

As Editor of Radiomusications, I am particularly pleased with this month’s update. For you see, RMC has a special section called Radio By Numbers, covering the arrivals 40 years ago…

BBC One Controller resigns!

Published 5 October 2007

Well, here we go again. In the wake of “Queengate”, the controller of BBC1 Peter Fincham has resigned with Roly Keating taking over on a temporary basis. It wasn’t that…

No improvement in UEFA Champions League radio coverage saga.

Published 3 October 2007

Yesterday, I reported on the shameful state of affairs in UEFA Champions League coverage on radio. How Five Live and Talksport both covered the Manchester United match yesterday, despite the…

Radio recall

Published 3 October 2007

Growing up with Radios 1 & 2

Media Octoberfest Day 2: Two new radio stations on DAB in Dublin

Published 2 October 2007

After yesterday’s busy day, there’s barely a moment to recover before Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports via its Media Network Weblog the launch of two new radio stations on DAB in…

UEFA Champions League coverage on radio. Why the same match?

Published 2 October 2007

Radio is my usual home for news, sport and music, although I watch TV news and ues the web too. Tonight, 3 British teams were involved in UEFA Champions League…

A busy day!

Published 1 October 2007

October 1st 2007 will go down in broadcasting history as a very active day. Sky News launched a new daytime schedule today. Sky Today with Julie Etchingham aired at 9am,…

A Media Octoberfest!

Published 30 September 2007

Usually, October is a quietish month when it comes to the world’s media. The new Autumn/Fall season programmes have debuted and things tend to quieten down for a bit. But…

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 16th September 2007

Published 26 September 2007

The latest publically released viewing figures from BARB reveal some interesting facts. The first one to catch my eye, was this… Sky Three is watched by more people than Sky…

Pop Concert + News Channel = Strange bedfellows!!!

Published 21 September 2007

At 6.17pm this evening, I receieved via an RSS feed, a press release from Sky Press Office, to inform me that Sky News had secured exclusive access to air part…

UKTV G2 – Dave! The new school of branding

Published 20 September 2007

To follow up on my colleague Andrew Bowden earlier post about UKTV G2 being rebranded as Dave, this is not the first time I’ve come across this particular branding phenomenon….

Ratings Review: BARB Week Ending 09 September 2007

Published 19 September 2007

This week’s publically available ratings throw up some interesting titbits. ABC1, which recently announced it would be closing, had a great week, scoring 0.4 share / 5.2 weekly reach. Almost…

Sky propping up Sky One with Champions League Football

Published 16 September 2007

In a change to schedules published in your TV guide, Sky have started to advertise the fact that they will be showing Rangers’ UEFA Champions League match against Stuttgart on…

A new battleground?

Published 16 September 2007

Broadcast reported earlier this week, that ITN will provide the content for Setanta Sports News, the new sports news channel that will launch initially on cable as a replacement for…

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