Tim Bourne resource

I've upleaded (having scanned it in) my branding dissertation (a word document) from 1999 and created a resource page

more to follow ...

Failure of the market in Broadcasting


This week has been a big one interms of broadcasting, the BBC has had one its routine musical chairs at the top where Ashley Highfield continues to dazzle- as Emily Bell says on the Guardian Media Podcast these things are required to keep people on their toes in non commercial organisations. Speaking of these changes and also the goings on at Channel 4 (moving into radio making film4 free)- it has become clear to me despite my free market leanings that broadcasting does need intervention to retain any value for UK citizens -ITV is currently in (what appears to be) terminal decline, the UK regulator (term used loosely) has no interest in the quality it offers and the standards it holds are weaking day by day.
Channel 4 and the BBC might be state controlled but it seems that the ethos and the value the staff on their 'product' mean that they have well produced programmes that have some integrity and they need protection.

Middle East Crisis

Things are looking very serious the USA (amongst others) needs to intervene to cool the temperature -Israel has a right to exist but must consider the future of the region - I hope that by next week there's a ceasefire and casualties are no longer being routinely reported on either side.

My contribution to one day in the life of TELEVISION ..

I've been hard(ish) at work on my final assignment (before the dissertation) and noticed a book I contributed to, it's derived from daily diaries of people working in TV in UK on one day (November 1st 1988), I was at ITN and here's my entry

We break for lunch, Elliot (my replay colleague), Jim an editor and I go to an Italian restaurant which has been recommended. As we begin eating we see three other ITN people, two union officials and a senior manager, eating together. They all look fairly amicable so things must be OK. We briefly discuss ITN staff who are taking up jobs at Sky, and those we wish were . .

TIM BOURNE, TRANSMISSION POOL OPERATOR

It was an interesting time and a good way of catching a moment, I'm not sure if TV's got worse it's certainly changed. The book's available if you want to take a read. The restaurant was areally excellent on as it was on expenses in those heady days of the ACTT being a strong broadcasting union and working for ITN being a great experience. Sad to see I had the problem of overusing brackets all those years ago.

The Power of Narratives

The power of narrative has a momentum to ones own (and to others lives) the question of what will happen to Prescott (to me) has an inevitability to it and on the same subject I wonder how one would feel about the France/Italy final if there wasn’t a narrative to buy into (and it seems the narrative is the flawed Zidane)

And Fiction

I was interested to hear Germaine Greer on the radio talking about her fear of fictionalizing her past; it seems to me that as one gets older by sheer longevity one finds that curious things have happened to or around you. I sometimes wonder if I really argued with Chinese militia in aborder town>

And Stranger than Fiction

I wrote a short piece for Digital Lifestyles about ITN while writing it I was reminded of my first day working in production on the channel 3 bulletins where I was required to put a freeze frame on a story about a donkey wearing suspenders, so it’s not all skateboarding ducks. Sadly I couldn’t find a picture of a similar donkey (and not sure what the whole story was) so here’s a skateboarding duck (well the closest thing I could find).

Johnny Prescott B Good

John it's time to go - the momentum around the casino sleaze and the extra marital dalliances is unstoppable.
Like Major's Gov't before Tony's is now disintegrating in front of our eyes.
Find out about Prescott's affairs here and here oh yes and here

The week in Blog


Politics

UK by elections (Wales and Kent) gave bllody noses to both of the major political parties do we have a case of Ming the winner? (despite his party not winning), it seems to me that (New) Labour did as one might expect a tired party of Government to do (lose badly in all three votes, two for MPs to the UK Parliament and one to the Welsh assembly) but the protest was confused.
Old Conservative voters stayed at home in Kent meaning the win was by a wafer thin majority, but for a general election even those oh so solid tories who are unsure of 'Dave' will make the effort to vote anti Blair.
The Welsh protest will not be of any long term significance and Ming's almost win is just short of the momentum a win would have given him.
Cameron needs to keep his nerve; the elction will be won in the cenrtre ground which he (rightly) covets - Gordon has a fight on that's for sure.





a bit of a cynic about thoughts of reclaiming the flag of St George from right wing nationalist Zealots but have been forced to re-examine my take on this in view of recent sporting events. Folks who you wouldn’t expect to be in the forefront of the BNP are seen festooned in shirts and flags that are decorated with Lions (3 off) and red crosses (at least one), by and large I think this is a good thing. It’s been interesting to see so many cars in London sporting two flags (England and one other) and this doesn’t seem to be a UK only phenomena, let’s hope it’s telling us something good about belonging and inclusion.