That is unless you’re UK newspaper The Sunday Express. Having already cut back on staff so much that they’re basically a blog anyway (seriously, last year a plan was unveiled for the journalists to lay out and subedit their own stories – like bloggers), the Sunday Express seems to have no resources to get an original story.

Although it looks like it is, today’s front page story is nothing to do with missing child Madeline McCann. It’s about a missing child who has turned up after 6 years. It might make page 5 or 6 normally but with an front page to fill they’ve tacked on a fake “The McCanns will now have fresh hope” angle and are now shamelessly cashing in on Madeline’s parents. Again.

The Express has never been a particularly good quality paper but they’re looking more and more like a blog desperate for traffic than ever. With job cuts virtually across the board in the newspaper industry we may well see other titles go the same way. The line between newspapers and blogs is being blurred and that can only be a good thing for bloggers.

It’s a frustrating experience. The content you want to watch is online and right in front of you. The only thing stopping you watching it is an artificial block on IP numbers from your country. You can see why it gets people angry and you can see why tech bloggers have ended up calling this region-blocking of web content ‘Georetarding’ (or sometimes ‘Geotarding‘).

I’ve certainly felt frustrated when I’ve tried to view something and I’ve been blocked because of where I live. The thing is, while using sentences like “Hulu’s content is all georetarded” might be mildly cathartic for bloggers, it’s a flawed accusation.

Calling sites like Hulu ‘Georetarded’ implies that they are just holding out on an international launch and that they could just flip a switch right now and everyone would be happy. The fact is that TV rights licensing is far more complex than most people realise. It’s not just a case of saying to TV networks “Can we show your programmes online and we’ll give you some money?”.

Having worked on several TV programmes myself I know just how complicated it is having to get clearance for every piece of music in the programme and every archive clip from another show or a film. Sometimes rights to this music and footage is controlled by different people in different countries. The issue of who you pay when a programme’s being shown globally online must be a nightmare.

Then there’s actors. Actors get paid ‘repeat fees’ every time a show they’re in is reshown. This can make reshowing old programmes a deceptively expensive business.

Then there’s the networks in individual countries who have paid for exclusive rights to show a programme in their territory. Deals have to be struck with each of those networks. While I’m sure that online streaming of programmes is factored into new TV licensing agreements these days, there is undoubtedly a maze of problems that must be negotiated before programmes can be shown globally.

If Hulu, or any other ‘georetarded’ service, flipped a switch right now to allow global access to their content a lot of viewers would be ecstatic. They just can’t do that though unless they have a deathwish – the lawsuits would be flying in within minutes.

So, bloggers! Stop moaning about things you can’t have yet and realise that there are people working behind the scenes to make the ‘access it all, anywhere’ online media utopia a reality. The first steps to that reality are getting closer. Hulu is rumoured to be launching in the UK later this year so other countries can’t be far behind.

Besides, if you are going to moan can’t you pick a less ugly word than ‘Georetarded’?

Those are the words I closed this post with in September last year. I’d visited the offices of my local newspaper, the Manchester Evening News, and been impressed by their multimedia approach in the face of a grim future for printed newspapers. Through integrating local television, web video, microblogging and mobile technology they were facing declining sales head-on. By embracing the very technologies that were threatening its existence, MEN Media was showing it was better placed than many other local media outlets around the country to weather the storm of the current financial climate.

Now, just eight months later, they’ve thrown that all away. In a series of cost cutting excercises over the past month they have:

• Cut the budget of the local TV station, Channel M, to even more of a shoestring than it was before. Most of the entertainment content has been axed, including all their excellent coverage of the local music scene. The staff of the station has been halved.
• Significantly cut back on journalists and shut down all the satellite offices around the region that provided local contact points for people with stories to share.
• Following the (voluntary) departure last week of the Manchester Evening News’ head of online editorial, Sarah Hartley, the future is unclear for the paper’s pioneering online offerings. These include a variety of blogs, experiments in microblogging and live video streaming of important events, not to mention the strong links Sarah had built up with the local digital creative community. The blog that covered the city’s digital scene, The Mancunian Way, has today relaunched as an “It’s a funny old world”/”Have your say”-type offering with a much broader remit.

As local writer Craig McGinty put it “The MEN seems determined to cut its journalism costs yet at the same time it is distancing itself from local communities, be they geographical or interest based, eventually though it will be swamped as these groups gather and power forward”.

The management at MEN Media seem determined to pilot their company into a death spiral. Channel M is due to expand on to digital terrestrial television this year, bringing it to a much wider audience than it currently gets. That audience just won’t bother to tune into their local station if it doesn’t offer a good variety of relevant and interesting content. Likewise, any fool can see that without investing in journalism people will stop reading the paper and find their news elsewhere.

It seems that financial constraints forced the management’s hand before the investments that had so impressed me last autumn could pay off. The Manchester Evening News is an important part of daily life in Greater Manchester and to see all its strides forward in recent times lead to nothing is hugely saddening.

When times are hard you need to cut back but to reduce the local TV station to a news and sport service with a skeleton staff and risk the quality of your news by cutting journalists is like a greengrocer dealing with hard times by selling nothing but the cheapest apples. One of you most popular products might be still there but the lack of variety and quality is hardly going to make you popular with customers..

The only positive outcome of these cutbacks is that they leave huge gaps in the market that can be filled by enterprising groups with much lower overheads than MEN Media. If there’s one place these people can thrive, it’s the hive of creativity that is Manchester. I cant wait to see what they come up with.

Apalling rubbish like 'Closer' could be consigned to history thanks to the mobile web.

While many areas of the print media are suffering in the current economic climate, weekly celebrity magazines continue to sell well. They may be pretty light on substance (”Is Jennifer Aniston pregnant?” they repeatedly ask on their covers – look inside and you’ll find lots of photos and no answers) and occasionally tactless (OK recently published a tribute issue to Jade Goody before she died) but for many people they’re dose of escapism to while away a teabreak at work.

While newspapers are having a hard time in the face of much faster news sources online, celebrity magazines still have a place in people’s shopping baskets. Nothing lasts forever though, and the days of the likes of Heat and Closer dominating magazine circulation charts may be numbered.

Five years ago, would you have considered connecting to the internet with your mobile phone? Chances are you wouldn’t; the cost was crazily expensive and the sites that were available were pale imitations of the ‘real web’. These days, through the promotion of flat-rate data contracts and network pushing ‘Facebook on your phone’, people are realising just how powerful the mobile web can be.

Mobile web access still has a long way to go though. Unless you have an expensive smartphone the simple act of entering a URL can be a time-consuming pain. As big-screened phones with touch interfaces and easy-to-use, good looking browsers become cheaper and people’s old phones are replaced, we’re only a couple of years away from a large proportion of the population having iPhone-esque handsets in their pockets.

When that happens everyone from supermarket checkout staff to finance managers will have devices capable of delivering up-to-the-minute, mobile optimised celebrity news with video clips and magazines will suddenly look like drab alternatives. As someone who couldn’t care less whether or not Cheryl Cole has had an argument or not, I can’t wait. Suddenly this fluffy rubbish will be off our shelves for good.

Fingers crossed the mobile web delivers!

Online Media Centres like Boxee are at threat thanks to pedestrian government aspirations

While parts of the world are aiming for super-fast internet connections way beyond most people’s imaginations, our sights are set much lower here in the UK. South Korea is aiming for insanely fast 1 Gigabit connections within the next three years while our government is struggling to get everyone up to a pedestrian 2 Megabits in the same timeframe.

At the same time many tech commentators are arguing that we’re just a few years away from streaming video replacing our physical collections. Why take up valuable shelf space with expensive Blu Ray discs when HD movies can be downloaded from the internet on demand?

When it comes to rentals it’s an especially tempting proposition. Apple have been trialing the idea with rentals over iTunes for a while now. In the USA Netflix has an immensely popular streaming service for its subscribers. We’re yet to see LoveFilm, the UK equivalent of Netflix, offer the same thing but it can only be a matter of time.

Another pointer at the forthcoming ’streaming revolution’ is the increasing popularity of media management software designed for use with TVs. Boxee and XBMC are stunning prototypes of the way we’ll consume our media in years to come. Video, streamed media, your music colection, your Flickr photo collection and all manner of other content can all be browsed at your leisure. Stuck for ideas of what to watch? You friends can recommend content to you as social networking comes to your TV. Some good media management software hooked up to an HDTV completely redefines home entertainment.

It’s all very exciting but is it feasible? While some people can afford super-fast broadband the fact is that many  people in the UK are stuck on connections too slow to stream the BBC iPlayer reliably, let alone download an HD movie. Whether its down to their financial situation or their location, these people are at risk of being left behind in this brave new world of media consumption.

Unless the government raises its aspirations a little it looks like DVD and Blu Ray have a long and happy future ahead of themselves. When it comes to the mainstream, the streaming revolution will have to wait.

Spotify founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon

The UK radio market is in a state of flux. Ask an optimist and they’ll say it’s just ‘adjusting’ to the recession-hit economy. Ask a pessimist and they’ll say that radio is in terminal decline. As advertising revenues from traditional radio fall, station bosses at commercial stations are cutting corners by ditching presenters and networking output across multiple markets. At the same time, the need to pull in as many ears as possible means radio playlists are becoming increasingly bland.

The BBC is trampling over its commercial rivals. Its public funding and lack of requirement for profits means it can get on with running the kinds of music radio stations the public want to hear. Let’s face it, what would you rather listen to? Your favourite music presented by a big-name personality on a national BBC station or the same music presented by an average nobody on a local station that’s moved all its live output to a studio hundreds of miles away?

While the commercial guys argue about the dominance of a public sector that’s supposed to fill unprofitable gaps in the market they’re increasingly digging themselves in for a bland future in which all local radio shows are presented by a computer in London with a nationwide playlist. So, what does the future hold for radio? It may bounce back but by the time the economy recovers we may all have got used to new technology that we might end up preferring to most music radio.

For the past couple of months I’ve been playing around with a service called Spotify. Over the course of a couple of weeks late last year practically everyone in the UK that I follow on Twitter started using it; and with good reason. Imagine a service that allows you to listen to any song you like, on demand, whenever you like. A full album? Not a problem. The same song over and over? That’s fine too. As long as you don’t mind listening to the occasional advert the musical world is your oyster.

Spotify takes the online radio concept honed by Pandora and Last.fm and further sculpts it into an image of exactly what the future of radio should be. The lack of choice over what plays next that nobbles the Pandoras of this world is replaced by a ginormous library that’s at your fingertips whenever you want it. If you’d prefer to let the software pick the songs you can pick a genre and let it go. There’s even a brilliant collaborative playlist feature which allows users to crowd-source music choices.

Could it be that in the future some radio listeners will ditch their old receivers and use services like Spotify to listen to whatever they want whenever they want, all without ever having to listen to any inane DJ banter ever again? It won’t replace all radio listenership – many people like to have a presenter talking between records and there’s always speech radio like phone-ins, dramas and documentaries that can be replaced as easily by software. One thing’s for sure though – as much as radio is changing right now, there’s more upset to come for the execs. ‘The Spotify Effect’ is waiting in the wings and it could be the start of a revolution.

Spotify currently offers its free, ad supported service in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. This service is curently invite-only although if you click through to this page you should be able to sign up without one. If it doesn’t work contact me for an invite.

A paid, ad-free version of the service is available across most of the world.

Amongst all the dross on TV over Christmas there were some real gems. BBC One’s Christmas Day evening lineup was particularly good. I ended up watching it from Doctor Who at 6pm right through to the end of  the Blackadder documentary at 11.30. The problem is that it isn’t always Christmas and now we’re into January TV is back to its usual mediocre self.

What can you do? Well, there’s always DVDs or video sites like Youtube, Hulu and the BBC iPlayer to watch some TV classics or to catch up on good shows you’ve missed but how about choices beyond the conventional? The huge decrease in the cost of producing video over the past few years has seen enterprising groups of people creating their own TV programmes for niche audiences that in many cases match the quality of a lot of so-called ‘professional’ attempts.

One such recent example is Techfluff TV. Created by a small team of London-based entrepreneurs, the show covers the capital’s tech scene with wit and flair. Forget the traditional ‘Elevator Pitch’, Techfluff challenges startups to pitch on an escalator, facing backwards without losing balance or tripping at the top. They only started their weekly shows in November and already they’ve managed to shove a camera in Techcrunch’s Michael Arrington’s face for an interview. Edited in a style reminiscent of Channel 4’s old videogames show Bits (which I mentioned here a few weeks ago), it’s well worth watching if you’re even slightly interested in the world of London’s internet startups. It should be available to subscribe to on iTunes soon, too.

In a similar sphere, our friends over at Mobile Industry Review used to do a weekly, 30-minute, HD-resolution show about the UK’s mobile industry. They’ve since cut it down into smaller segments to allow for easier casual viewing but it’s still very much on a par with the quality of productions you can see late at night on broadcast TV. To think Mobile Industry Review are doing it with a tiny team and (I imagine) an even lower budget than the lowest budget show on TV it’s a huge accomplishment.

These two examples aren’t groundbreaking though, made-for-web TV has been around for several years. Manchester-based social media consultancy Real Fresh TV was, in a previous incarnation, a company that created live music programmes for the web. I should know – you can see me performing as The Star Fighter Pilot in this Real Fresh TV video from almost three years ago!

There are barriers to stop just any blogger creating shows like these off their own back on a regular basis. Lack of time, manpower, equipment and necessary skills can put the brakes on many bloggers’ web TV ambitions but by pooling resources with other likeminded folk there’s nothing to stop you diving into the world of online TV production if you want to. In the meantime, why not create some video for your blog on your own? It’s not pro standard but I created this video interview using just a Nokia N82 and Apple’s iMovie software which comes with every Mac. Microsoft include the similar Movie Maker with Windows.

If you’re an adult interested in creating video content, now’s the time to act on getting your skills up to scratch. I know a 12 year old girl who’s creating her own pop videos using Sony Vegas and clips of Hollywood films downloaded from the internet. She’s entirely self taught and the videos look great. The digital-native kids are coming so get your skates on and catch up!

Is Christmas TV really so much worse than it was twenty or thirty years ago though? Let’s take a look, courtesy of The TV Room’s TV Listings archive. Here’s what BBC One has offered viewers on various Christmas Day evenings over the years.

1964

Back in the Sixties, Christmas shows were really long. There was two hours of Robinson Crusoe followed by an hour and a half of Christmas Night with the Stars and 90 minutes of comedy in Laughter from the Whitehall.

1977

After some religious observance in the form of Songs of Praise, Bruce Forsyth presented a Christmas edition of The Generation Game and there was comedy from Mike Yarwood and Morecambe & Wise.

1982

There was magic from Paul Daniels, comedy from Last of the Summer Wine and The Two Ronnies Christmas specials and the big film was Poirot drama Death on the Nile with Peter Ustinov.

1990

Bruce Forsyth was back with another Christmas Generation Game, sitcoms were a big attraction with Only Fools and Horses, Bread and Birds of a Feather all getting prime billings.

1998

The longer programmes of past Christmases had been forgotten by the late 90s and there was much more variety in the range of shorter offerings. There were two clips shows (Auntie’s Bloomers and Before They Were Famous), home improvement from Changing Rooms, EastEnders had built itself up to a prime mid-evening billing while Babe was the big film.

2008

This year that spirit of variety continues. Doctor Who joins EastEnders as a firm Christmas Day staple, Bruce Forsyth is back on top with Strictly Come Dancing, Wallace & Gomit offer some animated family fun and The Royle Family are back after a few years in the wilderness.

Looking back it’s clear that Christmas TV hasn’t really changed that much over the years after all. Bruce Forsyth has been an almost constant fixture for over 30 years! If anything, with shorter programmes and more variety there’s more choice on Christmas Day nowadays. The quality of Christmas TV arguably took a dip in the 90s (two clips shows in the same evening?!) but it’s back on the up now.

Doctor Who is one of the few programmes that almost everyone enjoys and it’s the only thing that can lift me out of my post-Christmas dinner sloth. Love them or hate them, Wallace & Gomit are well-loved and it’s good to have a programme that the whole family can enjoy taking a prime slot.

Can it be that the grumble from people about a lack of “anything good” comes from having too much choice? In the modern digital, multi-channel world it’s easy to be overwhelmed by choice and end up watching some dreadful tripe like Noddy Holder’s Top 100 Christmas Rabbit Droppings on an obscure channel by mistake. Back in the 1970s the whole country would huddle round the TV for the same big highlights like Morecambe & Wise. Now, there’s just so much to watch that it just doesn’t happen any more.

We’re not even shackled to broadcast TV these days either. Online video is another option now. Not happy with what’s on? Rent and download a film online! Who says you even have to watch anything? You can play party games like Guitar Hero or Rayman Raving Rabbids games on a console and have some interactive fun with with family.

It’s time to stop grumbling about lack of quality and embrace the full range of entertainment options we have this Christmas. If I catch you grumbling I’ll force you to watch the 1977 Mike Yarwood Christmas special – you have been warned!

Ragdoll’s latest hit is In The Night Garden which launched on the BBC last year.  Any parent of a preschool child in the UK will be familiar with the tales of Iggle Piggle, Makka Pakka, Upsy Daisy and friends.  My girlfriend’s nephew is only 18 months old and is already a huge fan.  So much so that he’s taken a early love of merchandising tie-ins and has worked out that if you chew the Makka Pakka toy in the shop, Daddy has to buy it for you!

Like most Ragdoll productions, In The Night Garden makes perfect sense to young children but can seem to adults like just a load of people in weird costumes dancing about in private woodland.  There is, however, huge thought put into every single scene of each of the 100 episodes.  In order to explain that, the programme’s website has an exhaustive analysis of an episode with video commentary from the show’s creators.

If you have even a passing interest in the way TV is put together it’s well worth watching.  It’s written in such great detail that even renowned media Semiotician, Roland Barthes, would have enjoyed it.  So, head over to their site and have a watch.  If you need persuading, here’s the craziness they’re explaining…

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TV and gaming have had a rocky relationship in the UK. Mainly the preserve of obscure satellite channels that show endless Unreal Tournament matches, mainstream TV has rarely been treated to good quality coverage of the videogame scene.  Those shows that do make it to channels with more than a handful of viewers tend to disappear as quickly as arrive.

Here are some of the most fondly remembered examples for deceased videogames shows.

Gamesmaster

Combining Patrick Moore with a little-known young Scottish presenter with a love of innuendo may seem an odd concept but that’s exactly what Channel 4 went with back in 1992 when Gamesmaster launched in a 6pm weekday slot.  With a focus on competitive challenges with a few reviews thrown in for good measure it was the first real ‘hit’ series to focus on games.

Over time the series’ quality declined.  In series 3 original presenter Dominik Diamond was replaced by former child actor Dexter Fletcher, best known for roles in Bugsy Malone and Press Gang.  Fans of the show, including my teenage self, were rather put off by his over-the-top cock-er-nee presenting style and Diamond eventually returned a few series later with a much more smutty version  of the show.  Still in a teatime slot but with more of a focus on getting as many glamour models and sexual innuendos into each show as possible, it was clear the show needed to be put to sleep.  That’s just what happened in 1998.  Here’s a clip of the show in its prime, from 1992.

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Bad Infuence

Following the success of Gamesmaster, ITV decided to launch a new games show aimed at a slightly younger audience.  Presented by Andy Crane and Violet Berlin, the show was less about challenges and more about news and reviews, with children offering their views on the latest releases.

For hardcore  gamers like my brother and I it sometimes seemed a little patronising but it was always fun and it was a shame to see it disappear from our screens in 1996.  Here are a couple of reviews from the first series, including an Atari Lynx(!) game and one of the earlier John Madden series games, still a huge cash-cow for publisher EA today.

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Bits

After the demise  of Gamesmaster in 1998, it was only a year before Channel 4 tried its hand at another videogames show.  This one, however,  was squarely aimed at adults and being on at about midnight it’d have to be!  Snappily edited and presented by a three-girl team who (shock) actually knew a lot about games(!) it was the smartest and most enjoyable games show to date.

Following the end of Bits, a similar show Thumb Bandits replaced it but it wasn’t anywhere near as enjoyable and was quickly axed.  One of the presenters of both shows, Aleks Krotoski, is now presenter of The Guardian’s Tech Weekly Podcast.  You may remember I went along to the Manchester meet-up in the summer.  Here’s a clip from the first series of Bits.

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For the past few years, gaming has very much been relegated to those aforementioned obscure channels in the furthest reaches of Sky’s programme guide.  So, does the British public simply hate watching games and prefer to play them?  Possibly, but many more people watch Football matches on TV than bother to kick a ball themselves so there’s obviously a market for spectator sports.  Think of all the people who watch Soccer AM or Football Focus to get their Football news.  Are people so disinterested in games news that they won’t watch a show about them?

What’s likely is that as the number of games shows have declined from their 90s peak, TV commissioners have lost confidence in videogames as a ratings draw.  Times change though and with sales of games up 42% this year, maybe its time for them to reconsider that viewpoint.  While sites like Gametrailers.com can give us reviews and footage of new games, there’s still a home for a popular pastime like games on TV.  So, come on commissioning editors; give us a smart, fun show about games made by people who care about them.  Pitch it right and you’ll have a hit on your hands.