tvdebates – Page 3

Old media, new media and the UK election – John Naughton

25 April, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

“What TV did best, in this particular context, was to stage the debate: only a broadcast (few-to-many) medium could do that. But where it struggles is in attempting to add value to that broadcast event. To date, it has fallen back on the old, pre-Internet, staples (studio discussions with bigwigs, spinmeisters and columnists) leavened with a smattering of new tech tools (for example, second-by-second reaction tracking). But, actually, the value added is trivial compared with what’s available on the Web and in social media. And the reason for that is simple: TV is a push medium; and the intellectual bandwidth of push media is inherently very narrow. As Neil Postman observed many years ago (and James Fallows also showed in his lovely book, Breaking the News), you can’t do philosophy with smoke signals."

External link

Del.ici.us tags: johnnaughton election2010 broadcasting print online journalism newmedia tvdebates

Sky News’ Election Feed Carried By Telegraph, ITV, Guardian, Others – paidContent:UK

22 April, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Sky News’ Election Feed Carried By Telegraph, ITV, Guardian, Others – paidContent:UK

"SkyNews.com’s executive producer Julian March tells paidContent:UK that Telegraph.co.uk and Guardian.co.uk, in addition to News Corp (NYSE: NWS) stablemates Times Online and Sun Online, will be taking the channel’s feed from the broadcast in Bristol. ITV.com tells us it’s also hosting Sky’s stream.

It may not be initially clear what these sites, which may be considered rivals, stand to gain. Digital TV platforms, which all carry Sky News’ TV channel for free, are already evident in 91.4 percent of UK homes (source: Ofcom Q4 ‘09). But some, non-digital viewers are seeking an alternative means of viewing, according to our trawl of Twitter (below), presenting the sites an opportunity…

Each carrying the same feed, the news sites will be competing with Sky’s own SkyNews.com, which will benefit from on-air trails from the channel – but they will get to duke it out on surrounding features…"

Del.ici.us tags: election2010 tvdebates

Will the leader’s election debates engage first time voters? – Journalism.co.uk Editors’ Blog

19 April, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Will the leader’s election debates engage first time voters? – Journalism.co.uk Editors’ Blog

Elizabeth Davies' experience of watching the first TV debate online:

"I was not glued to my television, but only because I don’t have one. Like a significant fraction of the population – a fraction dominated by young first-time voters like myself – I chose to watch the debate online. Unfortunately the quality of ITV’s live stream made it difficult to remain captivated for long. It’s one thing to engage with social media to encourage meaningful online discussion, but quite another to slap so many cursory widgets on the page that no-one is able to load anything."

Del.ici.us tags: election2010 tvdebates online commentary

Election debate seen by 50,000 online – Broadcast

19 April, 2010 by Einar Thorsen Leave a Comment

Election debate seen by 50,000 online – Broadcast

Online viewing figures for first (main) party leaders election debate:

"Nearly 50,000 people watched a live stream of the debate on itv.com, while a further 200,000 users expressed their views on the showdown in the commercial broadcaster’s biggest ever online chat. The web page hosting the stream received over 600,000 hits in total.

[…]

The UK’s first television election debate peaked with 10.3m viewers (40% share) – with ITV1 holding on to an audience of more than 9m for almost all of its 90-minute running time from 8.30pm.

The First Election Debate between Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron averaged 9.5m (37.3%), according to overnight figures from Attentional.

It was well ahead of the slot average of 5.5 million (22%)."

Del.ici.us tags: election2010 tvdebates online audience figures itv