Category Archives: Media

BBC Three: relaunched live TV channel struggles to win viewers

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Most broadcasts fail to attract more than 100,000 viewers, according to official ratings

When BBC Three relaunched as a live television channel earlier this year, the corporation hoped its counterintuitive punt on a youth-focused broadcast outlet would help it reach new audiences. Instead, the channel’s shows are consistently being beaten in the ratings by repeats of old history programmes featuring the deceased steeplejack Fred Dibnah on BBC Four.

Most of BBC Three’s programmes have so far failed to attract more than 100,000 viewers on live television, according to official viewing figures, while some shows are lucky to get a tenth of that. Even the programmes that do perform relatively well – such as episodes of MasterChef Australia – are rarely the original distinctive in-house shows that the channel exists to provide.

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Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for more than $40bn

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Tech entrepreneur makes offer of $54.20 a share in cash to ‘unlock potential’ of social media site

Elon Musk has launched an audacious bid to buy Twitter for more than $40bn, saying he wants to release its “extraordinary potential” to boost free speech and democracy across the world.

The Tesla chief executive and world’s richest person revealed in a regulatory filing on Thursday that he had launched a hostile takeover of Twitter. The news came just days after he bought a 9.2% stake in the social media company and was subsequently offered a seat on the board, but then refused to take up the position.

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BBC warns of fake video claiming Ukraine carried out Kramatorsk attack

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Video mocked up with BBC News logo has been aired on Russian state TV and spread across social media

The BBC has warned that a video carrying its branding in which it is claimed that a missile attack on a railway station that killed dozens was carried out by Ukraine is fake.

The video, mocked up with a BBC News logo and using similar graphics to the broadcaster, gives the false impression that it has confirmed that Ukrainian armed forces were behind the attack on Kramatorsk railway station on Friday.

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Inquiry into leak of Matt Hancock kiss images leads to no prosecutions

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ICO finds insufficient evidence against those suspected of capturing footage of minister with colleague

No one will be prosecuted over the leak of CCTV footage showing Matt Hancock engaged in a clinch with a colleague in his office, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has announced.

The footage and stills of the embrace, which prompted his resignation as health secretary, were leaked to the Sun in June last year. It was most likely obtained by someone using their phone to record a CCTV screen, the ICO said.

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Shanghai TV channel postpones Covid spin show after backlash

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Residents express dismay online about tribute to city’s handling of outbreak after extended lockdown

A state-owned TV station in Shanghai has postponed a show that highlights the positive sides of the city’s response to an Omicron outbreak after an online backlash.

Shanghai Dragon Television, the city’s main TV channel that also broadcasts via satellite to Chinese-speaking audiences globally, announced the decision on social media late on Tuesday night, hours after it was criticised online. Dragon TV said it welcomed “valuable feedback to our work”.

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There is ‘no one News Corp view’ on election, head of company’s Australian arm tells staff

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News Corp Australasia executive chairman issues all-staff memo, with scrutiny on election coverage likely to increase

Rupert Murdoch’s Australian lieutenant has told News Corp journalists there is “no one News Corp view” about the election and that individual editors are free to decide which party to endorse.

Executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, said it was important to remember that “electorate issues in Surry Hills differ greatly to those in Broken Hill” and that audiences “expect us to interrogate all parties and all sides”.

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All-female newsroom launched in Somalia to widen media’s scope

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The pioneering Bilan project, funded by UN, will report on gender-based violence, women in politics and female entrepreneurs

The first all-women media house in Somalia has been launched, creating a rare opportunity for female journalists in the country to research and publish stories they want to tell.

Led by one of the few female senior news producers in the country, the team of six will produce content for TV, radio and online media on issues such as gender-based violence, women in politics and female entrepreneurs.

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Prominent Hong Kong journalist Allan Au reportedly held on sedition charge

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Reporter and lecturer’s arrest in dawn raid another blow to city’s press amid Beijing crackdown

A veteran Hong Kong journalist has been arrested by national security police for allegedly conspiring to publish “seditious materials”, a police source and local media said, in the latest blow against press freedom.

Allan Au, a 54-year-old reporter and journalism lecturer, was arrested in a dawn raid on Monday by Hong Kong’s national security police unit, multiple local media outlets reported.

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Elon Musk unveils vision for Twitter after joining board

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The Tesla boss, who now has a 9.2% stake in the social network, has offered suggestions and criticisms in a series of tweets

Elon Musk has set out his vision for Twitter after buying a 9.2% stake in the company, in a series of posts on the social network described by one commentator as having “chaos energy”.

Since being appointed to the Twitter board on Tuesday, Musk has posted a stream of open questions about the present and future of the site, proposing new features, highlighting areas of concern, and making jokes. Typically for the Tesla billionaire, it was not always clear which was which.

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Lara Logan, who compared Fauci to Mengele, says Fox News pushed her out

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Logan says network ‘does not want independent thinkers’ as Fox stays quiet on reports it dropped her after November remark

The former CBS reporter Lara Logan, who compared Dr Anthony Fauci to the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, has claimed she was “pushed out” at Fox News because the conservative network does not want “independent thinkers”.

“I was definitely pushed out,” Logan told Eric Metaxas, a conservative radio host, this week. “I mean, there is no doubt about that. They don’t want independent thinkers. They don’t want people who follow the facts regardless of the politics.”

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Fears genocidal language in Russian media may prompt more war crimes

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State news agency publishes article decrying ‘Ukrainianism’ as an ‘artificial anti-Russian construct with no civilisational substance’

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Two days after Russia began its war in Ukraine, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency accidentally published an article celebrating the country’s lightning-quick victory over Kyiv, crowing that the “period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end”.

After a bloody month of war, after the discovery of evidence of war crimes in cities like Bucha and Borodyanka, the language in that same publication has grown even more extreme, containing calls for societal purges and “re-education” that western officials said could provoke further abuses on the ground.

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UK’s transparency laws are being undermined, warn journalists

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Letter signed by several MPs urges better enforcement of transparency law, as government accused of obstructing requests

More than 100 journalists, politicians and campaigners have signed an open letter warning that the UK’s freedom of information (FoI) laws are being undermined by a lack of resources and government departments obstructing lawful requests.

The signatories include the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Katharine Viner, the editor of the Observer, Paul Webster, as well as the shadow solicitor general, Andy Slaughter, the former Brexit secretary David Davis, and the former Green party leader Caroline Lucas.

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Attacks on press in Mexico hit record level during López Obrador’s presidency

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Report paints bleak picture of journalist safety under leader who often criticises media and downplays violence against reporters

Attacks against the press in Mexico have increased by 85% since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office, making it the most deadly period for journalists since records began, according to a new report.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists with 1,945 attacks – including 33 murders – between 2019 and 2021, according to the press freedom group Article 19. Another eight have been killed so far this year.

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Tory ’revenge’ against Channel 4 could turn into bruising battle

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Analysis: why ministers are risking political capital pushing ahead now with privatisation plan is unclear

According to one key individual involved in the battle for Channel 4’s future, the broadcaster is a “wonderful company doing a fantastic job”, it is performing well financially and plays a crucial role in supporting the British television ecosystem.

Curiously, that individual is Stephen Parkinson, a government minister arguing that the only solution to secure Channel 4’s future is to rapidly privatise it and sell it off to a commercial owner, possibly one based overseas.

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Channel 4 privatisation plans face Tory backlash – UK politics as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can find our latest stories on Channel 4 below:

DCMS select committee chair Julian Knight has questioned if the government’s plans to forge forward with the privatisation of Channel 4 are “revenge”, adding that many Tories believe the move is “payback time” for “biased coverage”.

Knight said Channel 4 could succeed if it was privatised and managed well, but it’s “a big risk” and “must be done as part of a thorough overhaul of all public service broadcasting”.

It is certainly true that Channel 4 will have greater freedom to compete once privatised and if managed well it should be able to continue to innovate and crucially appeal to young audiences - a real USP in today’s broadcast landscape.

However, this is a big risk. The question has to be, do you think a restricted but brilliant small state broadcaster will part compete with the likes of Apple and Amazon or does it need to be able to borrow and grow in a way only privatisation can unlock?

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What you need to know about the privatisation of Channel 4

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As the government presses ahead with the sale, what is the broadcaster worth and who would buy it?

The industry player most likely to buy Channel 4, with the least regulatory hurdles, is Discovery. The big US pay-TV company, which is merging with WarnerMedia, the parent company of CNN, HBO and the Hollywood studio behind the Batman and Harry Potter franchises, expressed interest the last time the broadcaster faced privatisation in 2016.

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Nadine Dorries presses ahead with plan to privatise Channel 4

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Ministers hope to raise £1bn from sell-off ending broadcaster’s 40 years in public ownership

The culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, is pushing ahead with controversial plans to privatise Channel 4, with the government backing proposals to sell off the broadcaster after 40 years in public ownership.

The government hopes to raise around £1bn from the sell-off, making it one of the biggest privatisations since Royal Mail went public a decade ago. Ministers have suggested they could spend the proceeds to boost creative training and independent production companies, essentially funding their levelling up agenda.

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Will the news boom prevent more media outlets going bust?

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Analysis: newspapers have attracted record numbers of readers seeking trusted sources in uncertain times

From the pandemic and the war in Ukraine to the Westminster partygate saga, newspapers are benefiting from a financially lucrative news boom. However, is the news industry enjoying a one-off blip in the battle for survival against big tech, or is this proof that publishers have finally forged commercial models fit for the new media age?

In a sign of the shifting fortunes amid unprecedented news events, Rupert Murdoch’s Times and Sunday Times last week reported a doubling of operating profits to their highest level since 1990 and the Sun, a one-time cash cow turned high-profile casualty of the digital age, is within £1m of returning to operating profit for the first time in a decade.

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‘Massacre of innocents’: how the papers covered Russia’s atrocities in Bucha

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Accusations of war crimes and calls for tougher sanctions feature on Monday’s front pages amid horror at civilian killings by Russian troops

  • Warning: this story contains images some readers may find distressing

Revulsion at the atrocities committed by Russian forces in the Ukrainian town of Bucha dominates today’s front pages, as politicians lined up around the world to condemn the massacre of hundreds of civilians.

The Mirror says simply “Genocide” in its headline under the bleak strapline: “Putin’s latest atrocities”. It quotes Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s use of the term but the page is given over to a heartbreaking image from Bucha, just near Ukraine’s capital, where the bodies of civilians were abandoned in the street. Hundreds of civilians have been found in mass graves, it reports, and some had been tied up.

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BBC advertises political editor’s job after dissatisfaction with shortlist

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Bosses said to have been unhappy with choice of candidates after all-female shortlist was produced

BBC bosses have readvertised the job of political editor after being unhappy with the choice of candidates to replace Laura Kuenssberg in one of the most influential roles in British journalism.

Following weeks of interviews and an extensive recruitment process, the corporation had produced an all-female shortlist for the role, with ITV News’s Anushka Asthana and Sky News’s Sophy Ridge believed to be the final two candidates. An announcement on which of them would get the job had been expected to coincide with Kuenssberg stepping down last week.

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