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Missionaries, mercenaries and misfits
Lara Pawson, currently a writer in residence at the University of Witwatersrand, has a chapter out in a new book edited by Kenyan author, Rasna Warah. Don’t judge it by the cover (unless, of course, you really LOVE the cover). Here’s what she sent me: It’s a very readable anthology featuring some of East Africa’s…
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links for 2008-07-19
Ben Silverman’s Comments on Margins vs. Ratings Signal the End of Broadcast Television The recipe for profitable broadcast television is pretty simple: Develop large audiences that you can accurately measure and sell them to advertisers who need to reach them. The shows that do this even have a name, “Hits.” (tags: television ratings margins business…
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links for 2008-07-18
Study into the economic impact of the BBC on the UK | BBC Trust It’s great! Shocker. (tags: bbc-trust bbc pwc report economic impact) Some inconvenient truths | Ofcom “[M]arket provision may now be such that the consumer market failure arguments that sustained the old rationale for PSB, have been superseded. We are left largely…
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The citizenship rationale for public service broadcasting
Even though public policy is usually a rough mix of 99% pragmatism and 1% principle, there are a few occasions when the principle is asked to puts it head above the parapet. In policy relating to public service broadcasting in Britain (infotainment’s soup kitchen for the soul), pragmatism means preservation of a ‘strong’ BBC. And…