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LGB on the BBC

Tom Wicker 8 October 2010
A recent report shows a loud but persistent minority are uncomfortable with the portrayal of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people in programmes aimed at child audiences on the BBC. Tom Wicker argues that the on-screen lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual people need to consist of more than confrontation and crisis if this is to change.

What should we do about Murdoch?

David Elstein 6 October 2010
It is understandable that people are fearful of Murdoch's power over the media, but there is no real justification for Vince Cable to intervene in News Corp's takeover of BSkyB.

At last regional news is sexy!

Lis Howell 27 September 2010
British local media is in trouble, we need a much more lively and intelligent approach than just government cuts and schemes imported from the US

What can we learn from Mad Men?

David Elstein 14 September 2010
The attacks on US market provision of high-quality programming by defenders of the BBC, exemplified by Steve Barnett's response to David Graham's Adam Smith Institute paper, are misguided and misleading. Despite differences between the US and UK, we still have much to learn from US TV, argues David Elstein.

The Culture Media and Sports Committee question BBC Annual Report and Accounts

9 September 2010
Michael Lyons, Mark Thompson and Zarin Patel before the Culture Media and Sports Committee

Knotty independence: who guards the BBC

Tony Curzon Price 3 September 2010
The Director General of the BBC was photographed coming out of Downing Street with notes about how the national broadcaster will cover the government's unpopular spending cuts. To understand the BBC's reaction, you need to think of it as a business

Mark Thompson's MacTaggart lecture: a response

David Elstein 1 September 2010
Mark Thompson's MacTaggart lecture was a blinkered attempt to skewer Sky while ignoring the BBC's own culpability in the crisis of investment in public service broadcasting, argues David Elstein.

The battle for quality: Mark Thompson's MacTaggart lecture

Mark Thompson 30 August 2010
Mark Thompson responds to critics at the James MacTaggart memorial lecture.

A familiar assault on the BBC: a response to David Graham's report for the Adam Smith Institute

Steven Barnett 13 August 2010
The Adam Smith Institute and the wider right could never palate the success of any publicly funded institution, so their latest reports' prescriptions for the BBC come as no surprise, argues Steven Barnett.

S4C's mute allies

Steffan Powell 29 July 2010
After a drubbing in the press, the Welsh-language TV channel S4C needs champions

bbc.co.uk's world cup paunch

Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal 22 July 2010
The BBC's world cup website, while excellent, made a mockery of the Strategy Review's promises of sensitivity to market concerns and the pruning of online services.

Trinity Mirror cuts and the crisis in media

Guy Aitchison 21 July 2010
An exchange between a Cardiff academic and the editor of South Wales's Western Mail raises fascinating questions about how newspapers should respond to market pressures and how professional journalism can be protected when the industry is in crisis.

Unholy Trinity: The decline of Welsh news media

Andy Williams 17 July 2010
Trinity Mirror’s business model has already caused serious decline in the Welsh news media, but how much worse can things get?

Hunt's silence on public service broadcasting

David Elstein 16 July 2010
Plans for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport set out yesterday completely miss the plot when it comes to public service broadcasting. Continuing a theme, DCMS Minister Jeremy Hunt puts his faith in a Stakhanovite effort from the commercial sector once media regulations are revised, and fails to address the crisis in the provision of public service broadcasting, argues David Elstein.

Ofcom reports: it's back to 1998 for public service broadcasting

David Elstein 15 July 2010
Ofcom's latest review has shown public service broadcasting to be in a state of decline; falling revenues have resulted in a collapse of first-run orginal content produced by the commercial broadcasters, while steadily increasing spending at the BBC has done nothing to prevent a decline in such programming as a proportion of revenue, now at the same level as its terrestrial television rivals.

BBC governance: widening faultlines strengthen the case for a commission of inquiry

David Elstein 12 July 2010
The electrifying first session of our public service broadcasting symposium on June 10th takes on even greater resonance in a week that has seen the publication of a series of key BBC documents and a major speech from the chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons. David Elstein explains why.

Getting public service broadcasting reviews "just right"

Richard Collins 7 July 2010
Public Service Broadcasting needs a review that raises its head above the parapet and surveys the changing media landscape, argues Richard Collins.

Panel three: the public service media content that merits support in the digital future and how this can be funded

1 July 2010
David Elstein gives a blow-by-blow account of the third panel of the recent symposium of the Public Service Broadcasting forum

Panel two: how to identify, supply and fund the PSB needs the BBC cannot fulfil

1 July 2010
David Elstein gives a blow-by-blow account of the second panel of the recent symposium of the Public Service Broadcasting forum

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