http://www.mediauk.com/ Radio news feed en-gb This compilation copyright 1994-2009 Media UK; individual stories with contributors Mon, 9 Nov 2009 14:24:20 +0000 Mon, 9 Nov 2009 14:24:20 +0000 http://www.mediauk.com/article/4733 Media UK wizardry admin@mediauk.com (Not At All Bad Ltd) 10 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85512?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 13:29:21 +0000 Smooth Radio in Glasgow has raised £32,000 for its chosen station charity - Marie Curie's Big Build Appeal.The station held its annual fundraising day last Wednesday in aid of the charity and say its the biggest amount raised sofar. http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85512 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85505?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 12:14:06 +0000 Ofcom has found another short-term community radio station in breach of licence conditions for failing to log its output.Radio Ramadhan in Keighley operated under an RSL licence in September, but told Ofcom their hard-drive recorder was faulty. http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85505 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85495?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:39:17 +0000 A man carrying out interviews with the world’s media by pretending to be Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been found out by an Australian radio station, the broadcaster said yesterday. The prankster readily discussed the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio de Janeiro in radio interviews conducted in Portuguese. But a quick-thinking [...] http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85495 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85496?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:36:04 +0000 A top Communist party official in China has urged the country’s state media to expand its footprint overseas and called on journalists to do more to burnish the image of the nation’s leaders. In a speech on Sunday to mark Journalists’ Day, Li Changchun - who is seen as the country’s propaganda and ideology chief [...] http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85496 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85506?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:29:02 +0000 Production company Music Candy has launched a new website for users to download music beds and production elements.Music Candy has produced music for most BBC Radio national networks, along with television stations around the world. http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85506 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85491?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:18:04 +0000 Sláger Rádió may continue broadcasting on 12 frequencies across Hungary owned by Rádió 1 from the middle of November. A Ft 2 billion contract was reportedly signed by Sláger owner Emmis Communications and Rádió 1. Sláger CEO Edina Heal neither confirmed nor denied the report. Meanwhile Advenio, one of the winners of the controversial radio frequencies [...] http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85491 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85489?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:54:07 +0000 Radio Australia’s new Burmese language service began this morning, with two news broadcasts. Radio Australia’s Chief Executive, Hanh Tran, said Burma’s elections next year and increased international attention on the military-led country prompted the decision to start the new radio service. “This is the first new language service for Radio Australia in more than 15 [...] http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85489 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85480?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 10:08:52 +0000 Support services company VT Group has secured a contract to broadcast 20 hours a day of analogue and digital output from the Polish public broadcaster Polskie Radio using its network of European and global transmission sites. VT will deliver the programming on shortwave to listeners in Europe and Israel. Broadcasts by Polskie Radio’s External Service, [...] http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85480 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85477?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 09:15:58 +0000 Blackpool's Radio Wave has a new breakfast show, with Hayley Kay returning to the station to join Ged Mills.Hayley left the station four years ago to work in education but says she is looking forward to getting back on the radio. http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85477 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85458?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 07:04:28 +0000 National digital station says rival BBC Introducing service is squeezing out commercial playersAmazing Radio, the national digital station that only plays unsigned artists discovered online, has lodged a complaint to the BBC Trust calling for rival service BBC Introducing to be investigated for allegedly squeezing out commercial players.The company launched on digital audio broadcasting (DAB) on 1 June, only the third digital-only station on the service, as a national launchpad for unsigned artists that have uploaded music to the website amazingtunes.com.Paul Campbell, the chief executive of parent company Amazing Media Group, has written to the BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, complaining that the corporation's rival service, based around the BBC Introducing website, is an unnecessary copycat of a product already provided by the market that has been massively expanded and now threatens to kill his business plans."It is an outrage that the BBC should use public funding to copy our concept and, by default, seek to put us out of business. This is to all intents and purposes a direct copy of our privately funded concept," said Campbell, a former BBC executive, in the letter to Lyons."I am dismayed that my former employer should behave in so aggressive a manner towards a private British company. I would ask that the BBC Trust investigate BBC Introducing as a matter of urgency," he added.However, a BBC spokeswoman refuted Campbell's complaint, saying that nurturing new talent was part of the BBC's remit."We strongly refute this suggestion. Supporting new talent is at the core of the BBC's mission and BBC Introducing has been offering unique broadcast and performance opportunities to new and unsigned musicians for over two years," she added. "We are very proud of the work BBC Introducing does in championing new artists but, as it offers quite different opportunities to other new music schemes, we would encourage new bands to explore all the avenues open to them."The initial BBC Introducing website was launched through a deal to sponsor a stage at Glastonbury in June 2007. Since then the brand has grown to have a presence at festivals including the Radio 1 Big Weekend, T in the Park, Reading and Leeds, while unsigned artists can get national coverage on BBC stations Radio 1, 6 Music, 1 Xtra and the Asian Network.About 35 of the corporation's local radio stations also have BBC Introducing shows. Bands that the BBC claims have had a break through the service include the Ting Tings and Florence and the Machine.Campbell claimed that the flow through of acts from BBC Introducing has on occasion gone as far as appearances on Jools Holland's BBC2 show.He said he had been prompted to send the letter because the expansionist activity of the BBC had led to investors in parent company Amazing Media raising concerns about the level of competition.The company is also on the brink of signing an indefinite extension to a six-month pilot deal for Amazing Radio on DAB, under which it will have to foot transmission costs of well over £600,000 a year.He said that the DAB platform, which has struggled to gain traction with broadcasters, needs "innovative, new propostions to get people to buy [DAB] radios" but that the BBC's activities threatened Amazing Media's business plan and current funding drive."I would like to not be in the position where I can't grow the business and get funding because the BBC is too much of a competitor," said Campbell, speaking to MediaGuardian.co.uk.He added that the Amazingtunes.com website was beta launched in 2005 - two years before BBC Introducing went online - and went fully live in 2006. The parent company raised about £2m in 2007 and is owned by about 20 people.The company claimed it runs an "ethical" download service where artists receive about 45p per download, from a 79p overall charge, which Campbell said is far superior to the cut they get from iTunes, which can be as low as 8p per track.Campbell compared the BBC's expansionist activity to BBC Introducing to the corporation's ill-fated foray into the online education sector with BBC Jam.After complaints from the commercial sector, the BBC Trust shut BBC Jam in March 2007 with online content worth £75m subsequently mothballed.• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".Radio industryBBCCommercial radioDigital radioMark Sweneyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85458 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85471?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 00:05:24 +0000 Ray Mears won't be happy until the earth swallows him up and he comes back as a treeR ay Mears is tracking a man through Manitoba in north-west Canada. He won't catch him, though, not just because Ray walks so slowly and thoughtfully, but also because he's too far behind: nearly 250 years, in fact. The other man, in this episode of Ray Mears' Northern Wilderness (BBC2, Sunday), is a chap called Samuel Hearne, a British pioneer who was around these parts in the late 18th century. Hearne did an amazing journey in search of copper, from the Hudson Bay to a river 1,000 miles to the north-west.He wasn't your typical colonial Brit with a red coat, a musket and a dubious attitude towards the locals. No, Hearne quickly realised that the only way he was going to make it was with plenty of help from the people who properly knew the area. So his only companions were Chipewyan Indians. He learned from them how to make a canoe out of birch bark, how to catch the fish in the lakes, and make fire from the green bushes of the tundra. And he learned to stay south of the tree line for as long as possible, only heading north when the caribou did.It's not hard to see why Ray is such a massive fan, and why he's so perplexed that Hearne is largely forgotten. Basically Samuel Hearne was Ray Mears, but at a time when the world actually needed Ray Mearses. Ray clearly should have been born 250 years before he was, and employed by the Hudson's Bay Company to go looking for copper wearing caribou-skin moccasins.That's not to say he is totally redundant today; television needs him, in order to not be Bear Grylls. This is so much more interesting than all that whooping, macho nonsense and dangling under helicopters. And it's impossible not to like Ray, for his seriousness and enthusiasm. He genuinely is getting off on making that little bark saucepan, even though it's so cold his fingers aren't working. And I like the way he's always lying down on the ground. Those Indians felt the earth mother talking to them through their soles with every step they took; I think Ray is the same and wants more contact with her. He should really just let himself be swallowed up by the ground, and then come back as a tree.The actor, comedian, presenter, occasional host of Have I Got News for You and front end of Armstrong and Miller is having a bash at bushcraft too, in Alexander Armstrong's Very British Holiday (BBC1, Sunday). He's on a survival course in the New Forest, trying to make a fire. He's handily got some dry straw kindling, but still it just isn't happening . . . ah, at last! But then he spills the water they've spent hours filtering. And as for the waterproof shelter he helps construct, it appears to have a large piece of blue polythene sheeting draped over its roof. Hey, I made a waterproof shelter out of a waterproof tarpaulin! I don't think Ray needs to feel threatened.The log Alexander finds in East Yorkshire is not the sort you find in the woods. It's more to do with what bears do in the woods. Alexander's at The Thornwick & Sea Farm holiday centre, helping a nice lady called Mary clean the toilets. I'm not really sure why – it seems to be more to do with work than holidays. But anyway, he comes across something that shouldn't be there. Well it should be there, but it should be smaller, so it could go away more easily. In the ladies', too – there's Yorkshire for you."Time to leave it to the expert," says Alexander, bottling it (not literally, thankfully), and handing the job over to Mary. I think Alexander quite enjoys playing the bumbling fool. He pretends to get lost, and loses the rowing race. He's not very good at pulling in lobster pots, though to be fair he does manage to hypnotise a lobster once it's been caught. It's the most humane way of killing them, apparently: you hypnotise them first, so then they don't know they're being boiled alive.Hang about, deja vu, big time! Didn't I see this the other day on that show with the posh chef, Valentine Chumley Warner? And it was the same lady doing it, Felicity, the lobster whisper! That's the problem. There are too many celebrities travelling round Britain for television – chefs, comedians, newsreaders etc. They're starting to tread on each others' toes.TelevisionSam Wollastonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85471 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85469?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 00:05:17 +0000 The TV series of vampires in small-town America is now enthralling British viewersIt's rare, bordering on never- happened-before-ever, that I should find myself agreeing with the oracle that is Lindsay Lohan. But like the actor turned, ahem, designer, I too love True Blood, the vampire drama now running on Channel 4 – the only difference between Lilo and me being that she's posted pictures of herself wearing fangs on her Twitter homepage, and I have not. But I haven't stopped talking about True Blood since it arrived on terrestrial TV this autumn.It is a gripping blend of southern American small-town mentality and hideous murders in a world where vampires have "come out" and live alongside regular humans. There are colourful characters galore. I love the telepathic heroine, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin). She's totally the new Daisy Duke, in her denim hotpants and super-tight T-shirts. Her dalliance with Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), the much-older vampire with artfully dishevelled hair and architecturally chiselled cheekbones, makes for a splendid romantic centrepiece. Sookie's grandmother, meanwhile, is amazing: the most progressive woman in town, totally pro-vampire. Sookie's black best friend, Tara, is a pit bull of one-liner fabulousness. Sample line: "School is just for white people looking for other white people to read to them. I figure I save my money and read to myself." And Tara's gay cousin, Lafayette (Nelson Ellis), is equally addictive. A chef-come- drug dealer, he ramps it up in a (brilliantly) distasteful mix of string vests, eyeliner and turbanesque headgear.And then there's the sex – the sex! – which appears to have some kind of steroid problem, but rather elegantly bounces along the fine line between extreme and extremely funny. For Jason Stackhouse, Sookie's brother and True Blood's bonkbusting stud muffin, it's truly a hard life. In the course of the first five episodes, we've seen him dance in his pants for a gay porn website (payment for scoring "V", or vampire blood, which has a rather shocking effect on humans if they imbibe it); we've also seen him clutching a piece of prime steak over his crotch after taking the aforementioned drug. Hysterical. Naturally, all this comicly vigorous sex has not delighted everyone. The Daily Mail has criticised the show for its "depravity, explicit sexuality (bordering on pornography) and vile language". Well now you know it must be good!But what really makes True Blood different from stuff such as Twilight – which I also liked – is that beneath the glamour, the sex, the blood and all the fangs, there's some real depth. Alan Ball, series creator – who also made the quite exceptional undertaker drama Six Feet Under – says he sees the show as a "big old-fashioned romance". But there's a whole lot more to it than that. Ball presents characters you want to invest in emotionally while using their journeys to celebrate difference; he teases out contemporary themes and issues without getting on a soapbox. Bill Compton, the vampire, is clearly the ultimate outsider. In Lafayette, he's also given us an unlikely gay hero, unlike but akin to Omar in The Wire.Take last week's episode, when a redneck ruffian and some of his buddies were at Merlotte's bar (True Blood's Rovers Return, if you will), ordering food. When it was served, the redneck complained that the burger had "Aids" because it had been cooked by a gay man. So Lafayette stormed from the kitchen, confronted the men, told them to eat their Aids burger or else, and then stalked back to his hob, king of all he surveyed. And what's especially heartwarming about all this is that Lafayette is best friends with Jason the stud muffin, and Jason has far more issues with his sister dating a vampire than with Lafayette's sexuality. Indeed, in Bon Temps, where the drama is set, it is vampires who have become the feared minority.Ball says he hasn't read an Anne Rice book or watched Buffy, but Charlaine Harris's The Southern Vampire Mysteries book series, from which the show is adapted, appealed to him because the stories felt contemporary and funny without being campy; all that shows.Fortunately, I am not the only person to have noticed that True Blood is truly brilliant. The show, a huge hit in America, has already won a Golden Globe and an Emmy; the third season is about to go into production. Bring it on.TelevisionFantasyChannel 4Simon Chilversguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85469 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85472?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 00:05:15 +0000 This look at one long summer for three young friends on the cusp of adulthood captured all the langourous, rootless feel of that time of lifeLives in a Landscape (Radio 4, Friday) was a slow-build radio feature about lives on the cusp of something. Adulthood was the new state on the horizon for three young friends in Grimsby, and this programme by Alan Dein looked at the way this shaped itself over one long summer.The beauty was in a pace as languorous as time felt for the people involved, rootless and restless at the end of the college year, and directionless after their band loses a key member. Each of them spoke slowly, as if words had decelerated to the pace of their days, and with the same gloom as you could hear in the incessant rain. "I'm so sick of doing nothing that I'm so bored of doing nothing," said one, his meaning jumbled, maybe, by listless days and late nights. "We watched all three Lord of the Rings back to back," he explained. "Like, the extended ones, and it took 12 hours."Their band went from storming promise to only a fine drizzle of activity when the bass player departed. Hearing the others talk about the end of a long-held friendship, they sounded like children – they referred, sweetly, to "little school" – but they sensed that was truly over now. "It's just life, isn't it?" one of them asked, sounding suddenly all grown-up.RadioElisabeth Mahoneyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85472 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85431?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 00:00:52 +0000 Crowley, 48, was indeed once the youngest voice on the airwaves, when he grabbed the microphone on Capital FM and had his own show at the age of 19, an unprecedented honour in that era of radio. http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85431 http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85432?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=rss_newsfeeds&utm_campaign=XML Mon, 9 Nov 2009 00:00:20 +0000 It's 6.30am and my crew are setting upfor the first location shoot for The Execution of Gary Glitter. http://www.mediauk.com/radio/news/go/85432