tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70562525969517552922012-01-19T15:07:59.551ZWe think current models for TV are approaching exhaustion. The issue is: how to ensure strategies to achieve growth and avoid decline? This blog is intended to inform the debate about regulating TV industries through a period of change.David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.comBlogger361100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-88797957422026028792011-08-30T14:47:00.000+01:002011-08-30T14:47:09.455+01:00

 I  was fortunate to hear Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google, speak at the Edinburgh Television Festival and to attend the Question and Answer session the following morning.Schmidt posed one big question -- in my view a massively important one: why hasn’t a country like the UK built large technology companies? (He reminded us that the first commercial use of a computer was at the headquarters of J

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-17654566079151288162011-03-29T14:06:00.000+01:002011-03-29T14:06:30.799+01:00

I am taking a break  this week to think about next week's post. Big Brother was the defining show of the last decade. What will define this one? Your  thoughts would be welcome. Back next week.

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-30629812906480759032011-03-22T08:31:00.004Z2011-03-24T06:06:44.123Z

Typical? This week there was a fascinating case in the British media. The programme called Midsomer Murders, known around the world as Barnaby or Inspector Barnaby, portrays a typical English village (with a very untypical murder rate!).   I have written about it before. One of the reasons it succeeds is that it occupies very familiar territory: for detective stories about English villages are

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-62722183978674418942011-03-15T08:00:00.002Z2011-03-17T09:50:56.767Z

Rosario Tijeras is a Colombian drama. It is an adaptation of a novel by the same name. Rosario, the protagonist, played by Maria Fernanda Yepez, was raised in the slums and raped by a local gang. After the rape – her friend was also murdered by an infamous drug lord – she seeks revenge, and gets it by killing the drug lord. Word spreads fast, and, in a reversal of expectations, a gang hires her

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-76236731957168445022011-03-08T10:12:00.005Z2011-03-29T16:05:38.485+01:00

The US market: 50  channels to talk to The main question addressed in this series of posts has been: how do I identify a market for my content? And the emphasis has not been on home markets, but external markets, in other words, exports. I have emphasized a knowledge-based approach (hope that does not sound pretentious.) I observe that the traditional approach to sales is: show of your

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-47193131620671017022011-02-22T12:00:00.002Z2011-02-22T12:00:06.324Z

I am on holiday for two weeks.

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-65423486335490884172011-02-15T14:59:00.003Z2011-03-08T14:35:50.503Z

Image via Wikipedia Murder: Fascinated and Revolted Last week I tried to say something about the very basics of content that sells. You have something they want and they cannot do it themselves. But this is entertainment. What people want is mysterious and highly personal. How can you generalize? That’s what we try to do. Last week I suggested that one of the things that excite people is a

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-85365109528947868612011-02-08T08:43:00.004Z2011-03-10T13:45:14.676Z

Stieg Larsson: speaking as a European... If you are going to be an exporter of content, you need to know what other countries are looking for. It’s quite simple really: they are looking for what they cannot do themselves. Nearly everyone prefers content from their own country, in their own language. We are all locked into our private worlds, languages and cultures. Let us take some examples.

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-23133258000080035992011-02-01T08:26:00.004Z2011-02-14T18:46:28.401Z

What is Culture? My first blogs of 2011 will be about how to create a successful national media strategy. You will be able to apply them anywhere. A national media strategy is about how a government can help its media industries to flourish, that is perform somewhere near their potential. I put most emphasis on the global or international dimension, and start with the core elements of a media

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-25184493984408977072011-01-26T10:23:00.000Z2011-01-26T10:23:43.713Z

I try to post on Tuesday. I am afraid I have been unwell for a few days. Sorry. Back next week.

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-79017307720200129162011-01-18T08:56:00.008Z2011-01-28T15:30:34.223Z

From TV Debunked, Fortune Magazine, January 2011 The lead picture in this post – and nearly all the numbers -- come from a piece in January’s Fortune magazine. (Click on the caption for the link). The writer, Jessi Hempel, has just received the brick-sized box enabling her to hook-up Google TV, and having played around with some of the cooler functions (like tweeting from her TV (@jessiwrites)

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-2284516439591342302010-12-30T13:10:00.107Z2011-01-28T15:25:51.912Z

Release It, Legally and Soon -- at least that would be one simple message coming out of our work on Piracy. But it's far from a complete answer, for some content is not particularly prone to piracy. And anyway, Piracy is simply a secondary consequence of a technology that enables  simultaneous global access to new content. (Each new distribution technology offered new opportunities for piracy:

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-91352341605560649682010-12-13T18:33:00.024Z2011-01-28T15:26:41.371Z

 Not by genes alone: The PowerPoint is available on request This will be my last post of 2010.  I'm going to look at something absolutely basic to what we do.  We are all in the culture business.  But what is culture? A wide definition is preferable. Culture is simply the way we behave in a certain place at a certain time. Breakfast in Japan is different from breakfast in Britain.

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-11750213044428185182010-12-08T08:20:00.003Z2011-01-28T15:27:30.131Z

In my post on November 23rd, I wrote about the way Hollywood studios had coped with both the recession and a collapse in DVD sales in 2009. They did it by boosting international sales. For the Westminster Media Forum on Monday Nov 23, I tried to think about what we could learn from this. It was especially useful to hear from David Moody, Head of Strategy at BBC Worldwide, before I spoke. BBC

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-44171525541522931562010-12-07T17:51:00.002Z2010-12-13T14:54:20.141Z

Sorry. I have always tried to post on Tuesdays recently. This week I just could no make it happen. David.

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-33312117684437929492010-11-30T13:25:00.001Z2010-12-29T21:54:28.963Z

Source: BARB/comScore/Attentional Anyone running a serious TV business will want to know precisely how much time people are spending watching traditional TV content on the Internet. The figures in this chart are, we think, the first accurate figures for the viewing of TV on the Internet in the UK. I will explain why later. They tell us that the average viewer spends just three minutes and

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-82127034069552271742010-11-23T07:44:00.000Z2010-12-29T21:55:43.459Z

I have written posts about the way the Hollywood studios countered the recessions before (October 24).  The chart on your left tells the story in more specific terms. It is an interesting story, one that I hope has lessons for others. In 2009 the sales of DVD’s by the Hollywood studios collapsed. The collapse was dramatic and quite sudden,  dropping by nearly two thirds between 2007 and 2009

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-33099695505267130872010-11-16T10:53:00.004Z2010-12-29T21:58:35.111Z

Those in or near to Government who read this blog have hinted that the department responsible for broadcasting is now ready to move on to thinking about how to grow the UK content industries. After all, we are told– frequently – that one of our national assets is “creativity”.  That is certainly the mantra of the person reported to be the Government’s economics guru, Richard Florida. A

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-17609600802181382022010-11-09T04:45:00.000Z2010-12-29T21:58:35.112Z

I am in Cape Town, South Africa, talking and listening to producers and people who work in the media industry there. (I am taking part in the Entertainment Masterclass Project. It is supported by SETA, the South African Sector Training Authority). South Africa seems, on the face of it, to have heaps of potential, a natural hub for pan-African production. After all, it is the most advanced

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-81326369585104582912010-11-02T08:10:00.000Z2010-12-29T22:00:34.304Z

 Viewing via PC or Laptop: Source BARB  In the UK our staff are always being asked if we can measure the viewing of content on PC’s and laptops. The answer is No, or rather Not Yet, at least not in the way conventional TV is measured. (There are some other options which I will mention later). Traditional audience measurement needs credible, common standards that provide the basis for

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-20922265908042776732010-10-26T07:40:00.000+01:002010-12-29T22:00:34.305Z

 US Studios: International Sales: 2007-2009   Yesterday David Cameron, speaking to the CBI, said: “I want to create a new economic dynamism in our country. I want the years ahead to be the most entrepreneurial and dynamic in our history.” He mentioned some items, an Innovation fund, infrastructure investment – but as some commentators said, it would be good to hear more about the

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-62647897790185941922010-10-05T11:02:00.003+01:002010-12-29T22:06:18.319Z

Last week’s The Royal Television Society’s conference (28.9.10) had a number of themes. One is getting more insistent. The UK commercial broadcasters do not like the Terms of Trade for independent producers and want to make more content in-house, thus controlling its exploitation. Public interest set the Terms in the first place. (OK, effective lobbying should get some credit, too.) A public

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-87559473476052389692010-09-28T09:17:00.002+01:002010-12-29T22:10:00.358Z

Children greet Mister Maker in Indonesia A few weeks ago, at a conference we were sponsoring, called Programming the Future, I heard Thomas Schreiber, a senior executive with ARD Television in Germany, make an almost-passionate plea: could the UK please take the Eurovision Song Contest seriously? To him -- as to many Europeans -- it is simply the biggest global music event. Could we please

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-71401699715528540902010-08-23T08:38:00.002+01:002010-08-25T16:16:14.797+01:00

In my paper on the future funding of the BBC (see http://www.attentional.com/), I argued that the Government needs to be more specific about Public Service Content. Most of what the BBC broadcasts is not public service content, unless you define it very broadly. But a broad definition means that we end up subsidising a large amount of entertainment, which people would be happy to pay for. A

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-27302025817667126332010-08-16T18:45:00.001+01:002010-12-29T22:10:46.028Z

Over the last two weeks I have been going through comments in various media about my paper on the funding of the BBC. Some of it was depressing. Some of it was supportive. But there was little on the core objective of the project: how we do grow our media industry and our media exports? How do we take full advantage of the new “trade routes” offered by the broadband Internet? The UK’s success

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-33774392154534772292010-08-06T17:14:00.002+01:002010-12-29T22:11:10.634Z

As I said in my second last post, I took time out to write the report that was published this week. It is out there now, and can be found at http://www.adamsmith.org/publications/. It has had quite extensive publicity. I will resume the Powerhouse blog when I have digested it all. Here is a link to BBC News. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-10815162 And here is the Guardian poll:  

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-58891261448619634862010-05-14T17:07:00.003+01:002010-12-29T22:13:02.159Z

Dear Mark The BBC is the UK’s most important national entertainment asset, our biggest global media brand, with a great sense of purpose and formidable scale. But here’s the thing: you and billions of others will soon be able to get a quality TV signal from anywhere on the planet. Doesn’t this pose a question for the BBC? You can either remain a purely national institution, with a global

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-73244686229136146572010-05-07T16:19:00.001+01:002010-12-29T22:13:27.401Z

My penultimate post in this series. Next week I will offer some final thoughts, then write a paper on the future of the BBC for one of our leading think tanks – sorry, policy institutes – to be published in the summer. (Please let me know via Comments if you want to be alerted on publication). What I will say next week flies in the face of current wisdom. So this week I review a growing

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-73534411558494303262010-04-30T16:54:00.002+01:002010-12-29T22:13:54.118Z

Few have tried to reformulate broadcasting policy from a free market position. I have already mentioned Mark Oliver’s paper, Changing the Channel, for the Policy Exchange. Another recent piece of work is To inform, educate and entertain (2009) by Martin LeJeune, for the Centre for Policy Studies. Anyone who is serious about broadcasting should read them. Both can be found from links besides this

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-25611464428979292852010-04-23T08:24:00.005+01:002010-12-29T22:14:24.524Z

Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, said in 2007: “The only economic justification for the BBC – indeed for any public intervention in broadcasting – is market failure”. Many of the benefits he itemised in that speech are things that reasonable people should want to be widely accessible. But the trouble with the argument is that it makes an assumption of market failure and does not give

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-41620475368477515432010-04-16T17:00:00.001+01:002010-12-29T22:14:58.147Z

Visiting Virgin Media in London recently, I found the guys at reception watching the Indian Premier League on You Tube. You Tube has its own “IPL channel” – with subscription (no fee), a count-down clock to the next game, tabs for News, Team, Photos etc., banner advertising (Brylcreem, no less), and a library of games and interviews. It’s very, as they say, “immersive”. IPL is also available on

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-81995539207583726542010-04-09T08:57:00.000+01:002010-04-09T08:57:20.346+01:00

Like “cuts”, broadcasting policy will not be very openly explored during the coming UK election campaign. But like “cuts” – though less obvious now – the realities of life In The Deficit will quickly come home.  What’s more, technology change will be moving the tectonics of the industry. We think that will mean a new drive for media exports, a radical rethink of the meaning of Public Service, and

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-72635124253822872272010-04-06T18:37:00.000+01:002010-12-29T22:15:20.854Z

Changing the Channel, commissioned by the Policy Exchange and written by Mark Oliver, presents the case for “radical” reform of Public Service Broadcasting in the UK. I heard Mark describe this as a “centre right” policy initiative. You can see or download the report via the link beside this page. (Among other objectives, Policy Exchange promotes “national self-confidence and an enterprise

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-8387748551944014762010-03-29T22:34:00.004+01:002010-12-29T22:15:51.978Z

I have been waiting for the transcript of a Westminster Media Forum which took place on March 10 where  I was taken to task by Prof Steven Barnett. I was referring to work commissioned by Ofcom for their Second Review of Public Service Broadcasting in 2008: some 2000 people were asked to rate the programme types they considered important “for the good of society as a whole” (Q1) as against the

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-90109186604842044802010-03-19T11:31:00.012Z2010-04-23T12:34:56.012+01:00

The US has some 125m TV households as against about 25m in the UK. In my last post I looked at HBO. Where could we find a Pay-TV market large enough to create a subscription base for, say, quality drama and comedy? What about the European Union of which we are a part? After all, every country in the Union (except UK and Eire) watches subtitled or dubbed English-language content in primetime.

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056252596951755292.post-90011145374040405632010-03-12T07:14:00.014Z2010-12-29T22:16:39.956Z

HBO has many admirers in the UK because of the quality of its drama, but is usually dismissed as a model because of the much greater size of the US population. Some facts: HBO gets about $10 a month from 29m US homes, mainly better-off ( median income $63,000 in 2007). Thus around a quarter of the US homes pay a premium for HBO on top of cable fees and basic packages. For this HBO provides

David Grahamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17269807503502130908noreply@blogger.com2