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BLOG: Local radio is almost saved

BLOG: Well recently the BBC released some figures and they showed that 3,172 people from Salford applied for jobs with the BBC at MediaCity and just 24 people were successful. Local MP Hazel Blears is demanding an enquiry and calling the figure “incredibly disappointing”. Well sorry Hazel, but what did you expect?

BLOG: A list of some of those we have loved and lost in 2011.

BLOG: The Frozen Planet ‘scandal’

BLOG: The BBC’s Delivering Quality First initiative has certainly caused a few headlines for its treatment of local radio, however much less discussed has been its impact on the BBC’s regional TV output. However its changes there have been no less controversial.

BLOG: Delivering Quality First is coming

BLOG: Stop saying “synergy”

BLOG: From the “Boris Johnson is clearly an expert on making television – better at it than even the BBC” file comes this rather farcical story….

BLOG: It’s been the way it has been for so long that we just accept it. However I can’t be the only one who finds the fact that at 6pm ITV1 shows the national news after the regional news?

BLOG: The Socialist paradise (ahem) of North Korea’s NCTV starts the day with a march. Literally a march.

This year’s Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival may have been relatively free of controversy It seems that after all the noises relating the BBC having to close down at…

Tyne Tees? HTV? Who has the most boring ident of them all?

Much has been said this week about proposed cutbacks that may (or may not) affect BBC Four, the ‘highbrow’ digital TV channel that has a relatively small but fiercely loyal…

Can you believe it but ten years ago BBC News 24 rebranded and went all beige? Okay, so it’s rebranded several times since and now isn’t even called BBC News…

When there’s a major event taking place, it’s natural that television viewers will want to seek out the most comprehensive coverage that’s currently available, therefore Sangat TV’s coverage of last…

The BBC’s popular and occasionally controversial Top Gear programme has been back in the news again for apparently upsetting car company Nissan; this is on top of another dispute over…

We don’t normally bother with such trivialities as television programmes on Transdiffusion. I mean, they’re not the most important thing on the goggle box now are they?! However every now and then we spot an excellent programme that’s well worth mentioning.

Aside from those wanting Rupert Murdoch’s influence to be curtailed, the News Corporation phone hacking saga so far hasn’t been bad news for BSkyB either, despite the fact that it’s…

When researching for Transdiffusion features, I often come across titbits of information that don’t fit anywhere. Here’s one of them in an experimental video format.

If you wanted excitement, intrigue and unpredictability in the world of media news then this past week simply had the lot, starting off with what seemed like a minor escalation…

Never has a week seemed like such a long time in news. Go back a month and if anyone had said that the News of the World would soon be no more and that News International would be fighting for its reputation and survival, you’d think they were mad and would be preparing to get the doctors with the straight jackets.

Can News Corporation still achieve its dream of taking over BSkyB despite what now appears to be difficult if not insurmountable obstacles that have been placed in its path? Up…

From a purely practical and logistical perspective, the BBC’s Television Centre is nowadays a large, old-fashioned and under-utilized building that must cost a fortune to heat and to cool, as…

As the BBC continues to wrestle with the prospect of making significant cost savings, the subject of channel closures (television or radio) has reared its head yet again, but this…

As a television channel, BBC Four has been the subject of much scrutiny as of late, and not just because it happens to be a digital-only TV channel with a…

For me, SeeSaw always had one big problem. You had to view content on your PC. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a nice big TV with decent sound. Plugging the PC into the TV is a pain in the backside. If you’d put SeeSaw on my TV set, well then that may have been a different proposition.

Remember the days of regional ITV? Granada produced World In Action, Central produced Family Fortunes and The Cook Report, and Thames (R.I.P.) productions ranged from The Bill to This Week….

Having people like Sir David Attenborough and Prof Brian Cox defending the BBC in front of a Lords communications select committee is worth much more than a thousand “Delivering public…

A fair number of people are currently making a fuss about exactly what isn’t in the news, namely the current trend for what’s commonly known as a ‘superinjunction’. It’s an…

As the new chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten has wasted no time in signalling his future intentions, thereby abruptly drawing to a close an allegedly soft-touch Sir Michael…

The BBC’s “Delivering Quality First” (or should that really read Delivering Cutbacks First?) initiative, which has borne witness to a deluge of “trial balloons” in recent weeks, seems to (finally)…

What exactly constitutes an online video-on-demand service? Certain major newspapers are now pondering this very issue in earnest as the Authority for Television On-Demand (ATVOD) takes over online video regulation…

A short film has been posted to YouTube showing the rather poignant moment as the AEG Telefunken transmitter at Orfordness, Suffolk, is switched off after 29 years of broadcasting the BBC World Service on 648KHz MW.

Is anything wrong with Of course based on the book that he’s also promoting, Grant Goddard firmly sits on the pessimist side of the fence in terms of any planned…

Ever since the last administration reclassified the UK TV licence fee as a tax (as opposed to a service charge) in 2006, there has been a theoretical danger that the…

Whilst here in Transdiffusion Towers we were busy listening to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 6music, it seems Ken Bruce over on Radio 2 was having problems with his voice.

It’s April Fools Day, April Fools Day, Apr-Apr-Apr-Apr-April Fools Day! Were you fooled?

To be honest I really wasn’t expecting this U-turn over the planned closure of the BBC Asian Network radio station, even though the BBC Trust’s reprieve of BBC Radio 6…

It’s hard to know exactly what BBC management are thinking with their latest money-saving proposal to be made public, namely to replace some local radio broadcasts with a simulcast of…

You know that the BBC is in serious financial trouble when it’s now floating an idea to replace daytime BBC Two with rolling news, aka BBC News 24 or the…

Yesterday may have been seen by some as a day to bury news. Maybe that’s why the BBC Press Office snook out a press release about QI.

Admit it to yourself, this isn’t a surprise even if you initially thought it was. It seemed obvious that Sky News was going to be the sacrificial lamb in a…

To some outside observers, the loss of people like Pete Clifton from the BBC’s online news operation may seem relatively trivial from a day-to-day basis because it’s the journalists and…

Ever feel that you’ve been had? Some viewers of BBC Three’s reality-cum-consumer advice show The Real Hustle might conceivably feel that they have been duped themselves with the revelation that…

Every time I hear anything about Jeremy Hunt’s plans for a new local TV network, I have this tendency to roll my eyes and sigh. His dream of a network of local TV stations, broadcasting to cities and regions sounds all very grand and good – and desirable. Yet Mr Hunt seems oblivious to the fact that it almost inevitably seems dooned to faliure. Local TV has never worked in Britain.