Tag Archives: Misc

Rose-tinted testicles

By June 14 2011, 2:51 pm Leave a comment

My highlight from this year’s Media 360 was when John Nolan of North One TV, talking about the dangers of nostalgia for a bygone TV era, just stopped himself before advising delegates not to look at the past through “rose-tinted testicles”. I can ‘testify’ it is indeed a dangerous game.

At Thinkbox we try to avoid rose-tinted anythings at industry events.  There is still the occasional danger that a speaker will get the basic facts about TV wrong and we’ll have to put our arm in the air and correct the telly bollocks being spoken . Read more »

With this social media you are spoiling us

By May 26 2011, 9:06 am 1 Comment

There are a couple of things one could read into the fact that the BAFTA Television Awards – broadcast live on Sunday night – enjoyed its biggest TV audience since 2008.

The first is that it might reflect the renewed interest and passion for all things TV. TV has been undergoing something of a renaissance, with record viewing figures, new ways to watch, and – for commercial TV – a growing share of advertising revenue. It wouldn’t be surprising if a celebration of its best in class echoed this trend. Read more »

6 out of 10 ain’t bad…but there’s still a way to go

By May 17 2011, 11:32 am Leave a comment

Congratulations to all the marketers who have made it into Marketing Magazine’s Power 100 of today’s most influential marketers. How brilliant to see that for the first time ever, women make up 6 out of the top ten most powerful marketers including 3 past and future presidents of WACL (Dianne Thompson, Elizabeth Fagan and Roisin Donnelly, the president elect). Interestingly, what distinguishes them and many of the other women featured in the Power 100 is the lengths they go to in encouraging younger women in the industry.  They don’t tend to be the sort to reach the top and then pull the ladder up behind them.   Read more »

Twittle-tattle will only be ‘first’ in hindsight

By May 13 2011, 10:55 am Leave a comment

For once, this blog isn’t about TV. Well, perhaps a tad. You’ll hardly notice.  It’s about Twitter and (before you stifle that yawn, or perhaps tweet it) the furore around the superinjunctions.

A lot is being made of how individuals on Twitter – we must remember it is not Twitter itself, just a handful of its users – and elsewhere online can ignore mainstream media constraints and reveal/speculate on the identities of those alleged naughty bed-hoppers and adulterers behind the superinjunctions. Read more »

Room for the Inns

By May 9 2011, 11:31 am Leave a comment

I know they probably weren’t, but if Mary and Joseph had somehow been watching Comic Relief this year, they would have seen a sketch in which Lenny Henry tried to persuade James Corden’s Smithy to come to the BBC to help sort out which celebrity messiah should go to Africa. Read more »

Ofcom’s ‘most missed’ media misses the point

By April 20 2011, 2:07 pm 2 Comments

Which would you miss most: your iPod, iTunes or music itself? Let’s say you are only allowed to take one with you to a desert island. Stupid question right?

Today, you may have read about a survey by the usually very helpful and insightful Ofcom. It asked a similar sort of question. It found that young people say they are more likely to miss mobile phones or ‘the internet’ above TV. This is the first time TV has not come top of Ofcom’s most missed for younger people (it is still top overall). Inevitably, this has been seized upon by some as a worrying sign for TV. Read more »

A graph to remember (we hope)

By April 13 2011, 11:48 am 7 Comments

A picture is allegedly worth a thousand words, though of course moving pictures with sound (aka TV) are worth even more.

Sadly we don’t have any TV to make our point here, so a picture will have to do. It shows what each medium’s share of total advertising has been since 1995, according to the official Advertising Association/WARC figures:

  Read more »

A Pepsi challenge: make ‘friends’, lose customers

By April 5 2011, 9:25 am 1 Comment

There have been some shenanigans across the Atlantic that have seen social media’s power to impact on the bottom line being put under a glaring spotlight.

Pepsi had been gearing up for a major social media push for quite some time, calling for ideas as far back as 2008. Its main activity in this area kicked off early last year: the Pepsi Refresh Project funds small public projects based on online votes. The Project was funded primarily – and very publically – with money taken from Pepsi’s TV budget. TV had been sacrificed for social media. Read more »

Babes, bars & sunburnt Brits*

By March 28 2011, 1:04 pm Leave a comment

Have you joined a choir, applied to be a midwife or booked a flight to Benidorm recently? Or are you perhaps in a choir of midwives on a tour of the Costa Blanca? If so, you may be experiencing the benefits of watching TV. Read more »

Two lords a-leaping…into media jobs

By March 16 2011, 3:21 pm 1 Comment

Two Lords have leapt into senior media jobs in recent weeks: Lord Sugar has replaced Kip Meek as the chairman of YouView and Lord Patten has emerged as the next chair of the BBC Trust.

It was amusing to hear Lord Patten announce he doesn’t watch much TV.  Normally, we should be concerned when people attain positions of power over something they don’t understand, but we’re used to posh people under-reporting their TV consumption.  “Oh, I watch very little TV.  Just Channel 4 News and Newsnight – and an occasional documentary on Discovery.  Downton Abbey was marvellous mind you, and I find myself watching  the X Factor, The Simpsons and The Inbetweeners because of the kids. Don’t tell anyone but my secret guilty pleasure is America’s Next Top Model.” They then proceed to sing the GoCompare ad and do the Webuyanycar dance.   Read more »

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