Tag: tv

WHY THE BBC HAS MORE TO WORRY ABOUT THAN FREE LICENSES

Posted on September 16, 2020 by

The BBC has more to worry about than free license fees

Not for the first time this year, the BBC has hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The decision to stop providing free licenses to over 75’s being just one controversial move. Now, payments for employees have been shared with some netting more than £1m a year. Not bad.

While it would be easy to jump on the bandwagon, when you consider what the BBC is trying to do, the waters get murky. It’s no longer black and white. You see, the corporation needs to remain competitive without being commercial.

Held accountable to the general public, it is not always as easy as you may think to run an organisation that has to have total transparency. Every decision is scrutinised. The truth is, you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Attracting the best talent

Like any organisation, the BBC wants to attract the best presenters. I was watching the news on the BBC this morning and Dame Esther Louise Rantzen DBE made, what appeared to be, a very good suggestion.

She said, cap the pay of all BBC employees to that of the Prime Minister. At £150k a year this would be a significant pay cut for many of the leading figures at the corporation. That said, most of us would be more than content to agree this as our annual salary.

On the surface this idea worked. Make significant savings in wages and pass it back to those over 75 who have historically benefitted from a free license.

However, when you delve a little deeper you must remember that the BBC has more to worry about than free licenses. It needs to attract the very best talent in order to remain competitive. It is, along with programming, arguably its biggest asset.

Consider you are a presenter and you have worked your way up to a primetime position. You have achieved what you set out to do. You are a celebrity in your own right, and you earn the big bucks. Then someone comes along and tells you to give the majority of your ‘hard earned cash’ back for the greater good.

It is fair to suggest, in this scenario, many of the presenters would leave and work for an alternative commercial station. Not ideal for a company that needs to retain and grow audience figures.

Then there is the fact that BBC presenters can’t top up their salaries with work outside of the ‘establishment’. Take Nagga Muchetty as an example, who was recently criticised for appearing in adverts for Natwest while working for the BBC.

It’s easy to see why presenters may find the suggestion of a capped salary hard to swallow, whatever they earn.

The balance of maintaining and attracting audiences

While the BBC may have a loyal following, it also needs to become more appealing to a younger audience. This means creating relevant and compelling content that resonates.

The challenge is that it needs to invest in digital programming to attract a younger demographic, while retaining those viewers that have followed the corporation for years. Not an easy task.

It’s just not as simple as to create programmes that will be watched by everyone. Times have changed and so too have viewing habits. The harsh reality is that the BBC needs to decide which audience will support its growth and future sustainability.

Changing viewing habits

Digital media has changed viewer habits. We don’t sit down as a family to watch programmes at a given time anymore. Programmes are available as and when we want to watch them. We can stream live or catch up at a time that better suits our needs.

The power has passed from programmer to the public.

Those channels that don’t keep up with these expectations are never going to attract a younger audience. They have access to content 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They aren’t going to wait around to watch something or be dictated by schedules.

The announcement that the BBC may remove the news at 6pm and 10pm within a decade was a further indication of this. The theory being that younger people don’t want to watch ‘linear broadcasting’.

The argument again goes back to the older audience. They have become creatures of habit and like to catch up with what is going on in the world. They know when and where they are able to do this. Take this away and many of them will become even more isolated than they already are.

Pushing boundaries

It would be unfair to suggest that the programming on the BBC is in any way poor. It’s just that, as an audience that’s been brought up with access to it, we take it for granted. Other channels are competing hard for audience figures. It’s become a daily struggle.

Take Virgin Radio as an example. Attracting Chris Evans to the breakfast show, using the same format and even the same team. The advertising to migrate the audience was intriguing and certainly got people talking. Many, as a result, will have tried out the station.

While this was great for Virgin, the BBC had to sit back and watch. The corporation can’t advertise. It had to wait and to do its best to retain figures, keep talent and continue to be innovative. That’s not easy for any business.

The BBC can’t push boundaries like other commercial channels can. Again, it goes back to governance and accountability. This is a hindrance but one that the corporation must address if it is to appeal to a mass audience once more. A further example of why the BBC has more to worry about than free licenses.

A world without the BBC

As someone who has watched the BBC for years and works with journalists and reporters from the corporation, I have to show it my support.

Like any business, it has its challenges, but when we consider a world without the BBC, it would be a darker place. It is a valuable and trusted new source, as well as being company for millions of viewers and listeners worldwide.

The BBC has been a staple for many of us, but it must change and evolve. Adapting to new audiences is just one of hurdles it will face if it is to have a sustainable future.

Going back to the very start of this blog, the BBC has more to worry about than free licenses. However, this also needs to be addressed. There must be a way that an organisation with such exceptional talent, experience and reach can meet the needs of a both young and old.

It remains to be seen. For now at least, I will continue to enjoy the news, along with other family viewing offered by the BBC. As a household of three generations, we all have our favourite programmes and we will share in the success of an institution that perhaps, in some instances, is easier to criticise than to celebrate.

For more information about Open Comms and how we get our clients into the headlines for all the right reasons, please click here.

 

SECURING NATIONAL HEADLINES

Posted on October 16, 2019 by

Kellingley Colliery

The success of a PR campaign and securing national headlines is directly associated to the strength of client relationships.

It’s not that you can’t do the job if you don’t get on with your client, it’s just that it makes life difficult. With a specialism like PR, you are working with a planned schedule of activity, as well as the daily news agenda.

This is when relationships really do come into their own.

Why relationships matter

Take the Coalfields Regeneration Trust as an example. We had planned to launch the State of the Coalfields 2019 report and had a schedule of activity to support this announcement. It was one of the biggest stories of the year and an import piece of work.

We had been working on the timings for months. We had the plan and the spokespeople available, we now had to liaise with all regional and national media. The story was embargoed for Wednesday 16 October, when the report would be officially launched in Westminster.

Sending this story out was no small task. Hours of work is required when you are focusing on a project like this and there is no guarantee of coverage. It’s the start of the process that you hope will lead to results.

Making things happen

On the day of the ‘sell in’ journalists asked for the story to be sent through, yet there was still no firm commitment to coverage. Frustrating but not unusual. The next day things changed. The phones didn’t stop ringing from the moment we sat down.

Broadcast wanted to arrange interviews and it was up to us to make it happen.

The client was ready to take calls throughout the day and these were planned, scheduled and arranged. It was then that we were asked for a spokesperson to be in London on Wednesday morning. The idea was that we would secure national headlines with two TV channels if the client was available.

Excellent news. All we needed to do was get the client to rearrange all of their plans to travel to London overnight to arrive first thing for an interview at 6.35am and then 10am at the studios.

This is where relationships are critical.

Working together

The client could have said no. They could have said they wanted to spend the evening with their family. They could have said it was too much money to travel to London at such short notice. It may have been that they simply couldn’t be bothered with the logistics.

The response from our client, who we have worked with for more than six years, was that this was important. It was an opportunity. It was too good to miss.

Not only did the client get on the train late at night to travel to the capital, they also did so with a smile. They were excited by the coverage we could secure as a result of this piece. At no point did they complain, suggest it was too much trouble or ask why this couldn’t be done in a different way.

Then came further calls asking for interviews down the line (on the phone) at 6.25am and 6.30am. It was back to the team at the office to ask if anyone would be willing to take the calls despite the early hour.

Again, it meant rearranging meetings and schedules, but they pulled out all of the stops to make it happen.

Celebrating success

From the minute we put the news on this morning the reports started to come in. The client’s story featured on both local TV channels (Look North and Calendar), was the lead feature on BBC Radio Sheffield and was aired on BBC Radio Five Live throughout the day.

We continued to secure national headlines as the story featured on Victoria Derbyshire and Jeremy Vine, which then led it to be syndicated across radio stations throughout the country. Again, back to the client to ask them to detour to broadcast house.

We are continuing to work on this story (literally as I type) with three clients from the office making their respective way to different interviews in varying media houses in London.

I cannot be more thankful of the relationship that we have developed over the years. Without it, we simply wouldn’t be in the position we are now; celebrating success, sharing coverage and looking forward to the next story we have to share.

For interest, here is just one link to the story we shared: https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2019-10-16/former-coalfields-scarred-by-the-legacy-of-the-past/

Why the most ridiculous concept has become the most compelling viewing

Posted on October 8, 2014 by

I am a self-confessed lover of all things documentary; anything that focuses on real life and gives me an insight into the way that others live gets a thumb’s up from me. Some people say it’s because I’m nosy but if I’m honest I think it’s because I’ve always had an genuine interest in behaviour and social psychology.

During my PR degree (back in the day) one of the modules we were taught was Social Psychology and my dissertation focused on the power of positive persuasion through communications techniques when encouraging an individual to donate to charity.

Now, this is all well and good, and I expect many of you are wondering what I’m going on about but the thing is that the way people choose to communicate fascinates me, the way that individuals interact, engage and share messages in so many different ways.

All this said, I never for one second thought that a television concept which revolves entirely around people watching people watching TV (did you get that?) would catch on, never mind be of any interest to me what-so-ever.

And this my friends is where I was wrong, very wrong.

Gogglebox, for those of you who haven’t seen it, is a programme which features every Friday night at 9pm on Channel 4. It shows the reactions of families in houses up and down the country to news, films, soaps and general TV viewing and it is brilliant.

Image source: Channel4

The idea is that you watch how each of these families reacts in their own environment. Obviously the production team have chosen very different and interesting characters to make it all the more compelling with ‘the couple’ who own a bed and breakfast and spend much of their time drinking to a tea swilling vicar, her husband and dog or the friends who eat a takeaway fit for a small street between them, right through to the loveable Leon and his wife June.

When I first came across the programme I expected to dismiss it as rubbish but beyond the laughs and giggles that are to be expected as a result of a programme like this, there is a very thought provoking analysis that each of these households, despite in some instances being just a few miles apart, interact very differently.

The way that each family engages and even addresses each other, to what they eat and wear, along with the comments they make about the programmes, which can be anything from politics to prison break, result in varying degrees of discussion.

What I find really insightful is that in most instances the families are communicating the same feelings on a given topic – some through debate, others a single gesture such as a nod or grunt and others with borderline argument, despite them actually agreeing with each other.

I wouldn’t like to think that the producers introduced more elaborate people to the show, making it more of a Big Brother spin-off, as I feel the characters that currently feature provide a really good balance. Adding any more extremes would make it less credible and I like the fact that ‘normal’ people are giving their opinions about everyday topics; it simply makes it all the more inviting.

It’s almost a modern version of Points of View but filmed in ‘real time’ as it happens, and then aired at a later date.

Well done to Channel4 for such a compelling show with so many layers of intrigue and entertainment value, other stations really should be considering how they compete with a programme that is so widely liked by such a diverse demographic.

I’m already excited by the prospect of what will feature in Friday’s show and for any PR people out there, when your coverage features and is discussed you know you’ve made it. Never mind Have I Got News For You, the challenge is now Gogglebox!

 

What a day!

Posted on April 25, 2013 by


Today was one of those days that really get your blood churning – they make you feel alive, they spark your passion and they remind you of why you chose the career that you are in – today was the Buy Yorkshire Conference!

As the preferred PR partner for the event, we work for several months behind the scenes to draft press releases, engage with the media and draft stories for inclusion in the dedicated supplement, which was handed out during the event.

On the day however is where it gets really exciting. We had two rooms full of exhibitors, a hotel packed with high profile speakers and more than 4,000 delegates coming through the doors, the Financial Times, the Business Desk, The Yorkshire Post, Yorkshire Business Insider, BBC News Channel and Look North and the Times – now if that isn’t enough to make you wide eyed when you work in PR then I don’t know what is.

We spent all day running around, arranging interviews, making sure speakers and journalists came together, convincing local businesses to comment on national TV (in some cases live) and managing an exciting and challenging press event.

I’m still buzzing from the atmosphere. It was a truly fantastic two day event and everyone I have spoken to felt the same. Whatever company or sector the delegates and exhibitors worked in they were all amazed with the organisation and the unnerved attitude and professionalism of the Buy Yorkshire team.

Hats off guys – keeping it simple, you nailed it!

At Open Communications we are proud to support the Buy Yorkshire Conference and to be a part of something that is quite frankly epic. A massive #WIN from us. We are already looking forward to next year.

The humble #hashtag

Posted on March 28, 2013 by

 

How times have changed. It’s hard to believe that you could once hold a conversation without the word hashtag ever being mentioned, in fact many people would probably have questioned what the little symbol was for until Twitter came along and it became a global phenomenon overnight.

Most celebrities crave for the stardom the hashtag received and continues to attract. Its use, and dare I suggest overuse, is possibly questionable in some instances but it goes without saying that #FF and #Yorkshirehour, plus of course let us never forget #susanalbumparty, are now a part of our daily lives. Ok, the latter not so much so but it still makes me smile!

I noticed today in the i that they have addressed the humble hashtag and even dedicated a DPS (double page spread) to the story – oh what a transformation, from unused and neglected to household reference in a matter of years.

What I hadn’t realised is that the use of the hashtag for grouping information or searching themes and trends should be attributed (if the piece in the paper is to be believed – and we all know when it’s in the paper it has to be true!) to a man named Chris Messina.

Well done Chris – you turned an innocent symbol into a global superstar. But is it really useful? Well, you can debate that people will hashtag any old thing in order to try and engage and converse with others but the truth of the matter is that if leading broadcasters are using hashtags before programmes then they must see some benefit in them.

I do enjoy watching a programme while also following my twitter feed. The Olympics wouldn’t have been the same without it and as for documentaries I simply can’t help but giggle along with some of the comments made – I even go so far as to retweet a few if I think they’re worth it.

So the humble hashtag, are you a hashtagger or do you prefer to stick to straight forward conversation without attempting to be ‘down with the kids?’ There is no doubt that things are changing all of the time and a whole new world of conversation is upon us – the question is #areyouin or #areyouout?

Tears from laughing or a crying shame?

Posted on October 25, 2012 by

I made the mistake of watching Work Experience, the new reality sitcom, on E4 last night. I was really looking forward to the programme after noticing the adverts and was eager to see what it was all about – expecting, wrongly, that it would be a laugh a minute and something to discuss with friends over a few drinks at the weekend.

I usually enjoy these types of programmes – you know the ones – where people are ‘set up’ Jeremy Beadle sty-lee, in a situation which could be real yet isn’t, and there are hilarious consequences as a result. The first problem with this programme was that it wasn’t funny.

The scene was set at a fashion PR agency in London. The agency named, Grade PR, has the usual stereotypical boss; bitch in high heels, hoping to fall pregnant and being generally rude and abusive to everyone she meets, particularly her PA. Her side kick, who she had naturally slept with, was equally condescending, while also being a complete sleaze.

This cast, which includes a few others who are ridiculously over the top and not worth a more descriptive mention, are supposed to be providing two genuine placement students with work experience – and this is where I get really angry. The students are made to run around like idiots, tanning people, casting models and being shouted at – dealing with the tantrums and traumas of a ‘professional PR agency’ in a bid to win the real prize, which is… you’ve guessed it, an intern at a real agency.

What annoys me most about this programme is that it is a huge insult to the PR industry and I’m appalled that in both cases the placement students clearly expected some level of deva-esque behaviour. There were moments where I was so outraged I was literally shouting at the TV.

As a PR professional I find it insulting that a programme like this should be considered comedy and not because I can’t laugh at the industry I work in, after all I’ve come across my fair share of air kissing, Prada wearing luvvies in my time, but because we feel it’s appropriate to allow this perception to continue and to be fuelled. In my opinion it’s gone beyond comedy and is now a genuine expectation.

Many PR professionals will agree that to do the job you need to be qualified, experienced and able not only to write copy and secure coverage but to manage the most precious asset a business owns – its reputation. So why then do we all sit back and allow these stereotypes to continue, which only seek to ruin the one thing we maintain to know how to manage, the reputation of our industry.

I dread to think what will happen in next week’s episode but I think I’ve had my fill. I will continue to hold my own opinions about the industry and will promote PR as the professional specialism it is, after all if I’m not prepared to try to change these perceptions all I am really agreeing to do is to conform to them, and that simply is not going to happen.

As for placement students, please, please don’t think that even during difficult times you should be treated like this, irrelevant of the industry you are working in – it’s not funny and it’s not right.