Virgin Media to back Big Brother

Virgin Media has been confirmed as the sponsor of Big Brother 8 with the company's mobile arm to be the main service promoted.

Virgin Media has signed on for the main summer series - as revealed by MediaGuardian.co.uk - but not next year's Celebrity Big Brother version.

Channel 4 has not yet announced if there will be a Celebrity Big Brother in 2008. However, it is understood that Virgin Media will be given first refusal on extending the sponsorship if the trouble-laden show runs without a hitch this summer.

"Of course we had worries [about this year's Celebrity Big Brother], we would have been foolhardy if we didn't," said James Kydd, the managing director of marketing at Virgin Media.
"We spent a lot of time talking to Channel 4 about how they were sorting out their internal processes to make sure there wouldn't be any sort of escalation again. But Big Brother is always controversial, it is the nature of the beast. We just wanted to be reassured that there wouldn't be a situation that got out of control again."

Carphone Warehouse pulled out of its £2.5m a year sponsorship of Big Brother following the Shilpa Shetty racism row in January.

The Big Brother sponsorship package includes branding and advertising opportunities across TV, video-on-demand, online, radio and mobile.

"The sponsorship will be split between our mobile and media services," added Mr Kydd. "What Big Brother does is give a fantastic opportunity to bring to life quadplay in action and the core 16-34 demographic BB reaches is a bullseye for mobile. Virgin Mobile will be the lead sponsor but we will absolutely push Virgin Media messaging.

if there is going to be a big brtoher 2008 virgin media will sponsor them. it is a very risky idea and could back fire as people think big brother is at fault for racial abuse to shilpa shetty. virgin media are currently trying to take over channel 4 and are becoming a big success. overall it could be very popular and people which watch to see how big brother has changed or imporved.

Blue Peter phone-in received 14,000 calls

John PlunkettWednesday March 14, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk

Nearly 14,000 calls were made to the Blue Peter phone-in competition that faked the winner after the phone lines failed, it has been revealed.

A technical error meant that none of the people who phoned the BBC1 children's programme were in with a chance of winning the "guess whose shoes" competition.
Producers asked a girl who was visiting the Blue Peter studio to phone the programme with the correct answer, and she was announced on air as the competition winner.
The girl was a "Blue Peter Team Player" on a visit to the BBC studio after winning a separate, unrelated competition.
In a lengthy statement on the Blue Peter website, the BBC said the girl "really knew the answer" but had an unfair advantage because she was in the studio at the time of the competition.
It said the use of a "stand-in" was a "serious error of judgment made by a junior member of staff", and said it had "absolutely not" fixed any other Blue Peter competitions.
Part of the Blue Peter appeal in aid of Unicef, viewers were shown a mystery celebrity's shoes along with a visual clue and asked to say who they belonged to - Bradley from EastEnders, Boyd from Neighbours, or Sam from Casualty.
With 3.5p of the 10p call going to Unicef, it raised £450.52 for the children's charity. Another £727.75 went to Cable & Wireless for the use of the phone-lines, and £207.93 to Telecom Express, which ran the competition and has donated its share to the appeal.
The "whose shoes" competition was intended to run once a week for six weeks. The winner was offered the choice of the top 10 toys for Christmas.
The BBC said the technical breakdown was due to an "unavoidable technical difficulty. It was created by our need to handle all the calls very quickly to find a winner before the end of the programme.
"All the competition calls did actually get through. The part of the technology that broke was the retrieval system allowing our production team to make a selection from the calls. We just couldn't make a fair draw in time to show the real winner during the programme.
"This competition was a 'phone-in' and the use of a stand-in was due to the wrong decision being [made] after a technical issue during a live transmission. This decision was made under extreme pressure but there was never any intention to run an unfair competition or take money under false pretences.
"As Blue Peter is a live transmission sometimes problems do arise however we have run many competitions over Blue Peter's 49 years and we can assure you that this error has never happened before and will never happen again. Due to the added pressure of a live revealing of the 'Whose Shoes' winner a snap decision was made and Blue Peter is truly sorry that this was unfair to other children who had entered."

Blue Peters phone lines went down and 14000 kids rang in trying to win a competiton 'guess whose shoes'. therefore Blue peter tried to cover it up and got a girl from the studio to ring up and become the competition winner. i think this is wrong and the people should be refunded there money or get a free chance at a next competition. apartently most of the money went to charity so i suppose it was okay. overall they promised this will never happen again.

EsSaY

Using a comparison of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ and ‘Your Revolution’ as a starting point explore the media issues and debates which they raise.

Both songs are from very different times, ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’ is from 1971 when the civil rights act had been passed previously, but obviously Gil Scoot-Heron thought black people were still not being treated as fairly as white people. ‘Your Revolution’ by Sarah Jones in 1998 was centred on a different issue to do with women and their tights. Previously to that feminism has started and women were treated more equally to men in the 1970’s.

Gil Scott-Heron’s piece of music is all about the media and how it changes us and makes us believe what it wants us to believe. It says how everyone is influenced by the mass media and not to believe everything you watch on television. He always refers to the revolution, ‘The revolution will not go better with coke,’ he refers to advertising using coke, which is a major brand and one people always buy putting his point across very strongly about the media’s power. Black people are put across poorly in the media so it’s not something that is trustworthy and fair. It shows hegemony is present in society and ethnic minorities are under represented in the media.

Sarah Jones’s song is about the revolution of females in rap music, both texts are talking about different things but show the same concept as women are represented very poorly in hip-hop videos. She talks about misogyny with reference to sexual connotations about her body and how women are represented. ‘Your revolution will not happen between these thighs,’ is a statement proving that not all women are like those portrayed in rap videos and they are to be treated with respect. Both Gil’s and Sarah’s songs have messages about the media and the messages it influences audiences with.

In both pieces of music they show negative representations of their believes, in Gil’s he shows how black people are represented ‘…slide that colour TV into a stolen ambulance’. This shows that ethnic minorities are represented in such a way that people will be scared or will despise them. Gil is therefore talking about a revolution whereby things will change and their may be a black power of Marxism in the future, as black people are referred to as ‘brothers’ and police as ‘pigs’. The connotations of pigs are dirty and that’s how they describe the police.

In Gil’s the police are described as the bad guys, whereas Sarah’s enemies are rap stars. One which she refers to is LL Cool J and she mocks his song using intertextuality showing her hatred towards him for undermining women in such a way. Nowadays and from the 1970’s women have lots of rights in society but still rap videos at the time were very patriarchal sending out a bad message to the young audiences watching. Sarah’s revolution will be the day that rap videos do not undermine females, both texts talk about the revolution but the revolution is different to everyone.

Sarah shows that blacks in the media are represented as powerful in their rap videos, using their expensive cars and showing off huge homes, whereas Gil’s representation of blacks is completely different. In the same way audiences are led to believe what they see, young teenagers believe they can become like the artists so start disrespecting women and society becomes more patriarchal as a results. In Gil’s however people therefore disrespect black people so as a result they do not get treated fairly among society and are stereotyped as being trouble makers.

In conclusion both texts talk about a revolution where society changes but both about two completely separate issues. They are creating awareness and trying to get a message across but both groups are represented poorly.

News Values

Gatekeeping:
gatekeepers are the editors who are responsible for selecting the news broadcasts and creating the layout. he or she will only allow news to be printed in the newspaper if it is a socially determined constuction or reality.

Bias:
the news is somtimes bias as every writer is influenced by his or her background and personal attitude. primary forms of bias are:

• selection and omission
• placement
• by photos, captions, and camera angles
• use of names and titles
• statistis and crowd counts
• by source control
• by word choice and tone.

every piece of media is mediated and therefore you cannot be certain how bias it really is. it changes the ideologies behind the text.

How would you prioritise these news values?

reference to elite nations: iraq troop pullout
negativity: twice as many poles living in britain than officials think

Cult Of The Celebrity

How much celebrity media do you comsume?
i dont really get driven by celebrity media and texts as the only time i would consume this type of text is if it was humourous or wierd. like when britney shaved her head. i wouldnt buy a magazine or newspaper just because it has a celebrity on it. i dont buy magazines anyway and newspapers if somethings happened that interests me.

In what ways are celebrity stories presented?
celebrity related stories are expressed in a very exaggerated way in national tabloid newspapers. if there is nothing that is a top story for the day, they make the celebrity story feature as the main headline and therefore make people think they are important. people look up to celebrities as there are role models and want to be exactaly like them. a clear example of this is when people copyed Beckhams hair style.

people want to know everything that happens with celebrities as it is gossip for society a gives people a chance to laugh at the expense of others. overall its a great way for newspapers to make money and get audiences to buy them.

Shetty speaks of Brother 'racism'

Shetty, 31, is an award-winning Bollywood actress

Shilpa's mother Celebrity Big Brother contestant Shilpa Shetty has spoken for the first time of her fears she is a victim of racism.
After a row over stock cubes, the actress was comforted by fellow housemate Cleo Rocos who said: "I don't think there's anything racist in it."
But Shetty said: "It is, I'm telling you." Channel 4 has insisted there has been "no overt racial abuse".
Chancellor Gordon Brown, on a visit to India, condemned anything that went against British "tolerance".
Channel 4 and TV regulator Ofcom have had more than 21,000 complaints about the treatment of Shetty.
Housemate Danielle Lloyd said she thought the actress should go home, a statement she later said that she regretted.
Channel 4 said: "To date there has been no overt racial abuse or racist behaviour directed against Shilpa Shetty within the Big Brother house.
"However there has undoubtedly been a cultural and class clash between her and three of the British females in the house."
The statement added that housemates had constant access to support from Big Brother, and Shetty had "not voiced any concerns of racial abuse".

overall big brother was very contraversial and it created lots of people to get very upset over the topic of racism. channel 4 were to blame but i think they couldnt do anything about the fact that jade is stupid. shipla is too nice and it was obviously racism.

Audience Profile

Demographic Profiling

This is the most basic form of identification for target audiences. eg age, gender.. etc.
It assumes that everyone in a very broad group has the same attitudes.

If i were to do a demographic audience on myself it would be this:
17 years old
Working/Middle Class
Male
London
Asian ethnic background
British born
Sikh/Hindu

Psychographic Profiling

Market researchers started to catagorise audiences in terms of needs and motivations rather then simple demographic factors. this was consumers can be targeted directly yhrough their needs and desires. Advertisers now aim to link the ideologies of the product to those of the consumer.

If i were to do a psychographic profile of myself it would be this:
i am someone that buys designer brands when i can afford it. i am probably influenced by advertising although i am media literate so i do make my own mind on what i buy. so from this i would classify myself as mostly a mainstreamer. am example of a brand i would buy is nike.

Jobs axed with American FHM

This article is about how FHM has stopped making its US edition. Emap blamed it on the deteriorating US trading conditions. Around 40 staff will lose their jobs but the US webpage will keep running. This wont effect the FHM magazines in the U.K or any of the other 30 countries it’s sold in. The March edition of the US FHM will be its last when it goes on sale in the New Year.

FHM's US edition is also the biggest-selling of any of the 30 versions of the title around the world. This means it will have a significant effect on the whole company.

Opinion

This is surprising as FHM in the US is bigger then any of the other 30 countries. This is their main source of income and popularity. Without this FHM could be doomed and things could only get worse. This could be the start of a on going change in society, maybe men are looking differently upon certain issues. I personally don’t think it’s going to happen, it’s just given the other magazine companies an opportunity to increase their sales and become as successful or more successful as FHM.

Uses & Gratifications

The uses and gratifications theory assumes a more active audience that chooses the texts it consumes.

It became apparent that the audiences made their own choices about how and when they consume media texts.Blumer and Katz expanded on this theory in 1974 suggesting a serious of reasons why audience members might consume a media text:

Diversion - Escapes from everyday problems
I use this as a chance to escape from everyday life and problems by watching such things as comedies. We can therefore see the perfect lives people live in these programs and aspire to live like these people.

Personal Relationships - Using the media for emotional and other interaction
This point does not really apply to any of my situations. I think soap operas exaggerate things so people get emotional but it’s not for me.

Personal Identity - Constructing their own identity from characters in media texts, and learning behaviour and values.
This applies to you more when you’re younger as you get influenced easier. When you’re older you realise its just acting.

Surveillance - Information gathering, e.g. educational programmes, financial news)
Sometimes I watch these programmes to keep up to date with the latest news and current affairs. This is important as living in society today you need to know what to expect.

Denis McQuail:
Information
I rarely do watch the news and only do to find out the weather or if there is something big that's going on. Also I use the Sky Sports News channel to find out updates in the Premiership. The radio also in the background may give me some news updates

Learning
I don’t learn much from tv, I learn most from the internet. I use google as my search engine and from there I can go and visit lots of learning sites.

Personal Identity
I would never find myself imitating a character on screen. The dress or act from a programme or movie wouldn’t influence me, but I can be influenced by something that appeals to me that I see on the news.

Entertainment
The main reason I watch or consume the media is due to entertainment purposes. I like to be entertained by watching humorous programs and comedies. I also like to keep up to date with the football.