MEDIA Talk is an approximately weekly podcast from The Guardian, currently being presented by John Plunkett.
In the latest episode (July 26, lasting 39 minutes), Plunkett is joined Jemima Kiss, head of technology at The Guardian, and freelance tech journalist, Stuart Dredge.
In actual fact, it’s a Media Talk tie-up with another Guardian podcast, Tech Weekly.
So, on this occasion, it is very techie, with large helpings of future-gazing going on. And kicking off the agenda is a discussion about Video on Demand (aka broadcast content on demand) and how content hosts (eg Google, Netflix, YouTube, etc) are increasingly becoming content producers.
Internet-abled television is also briefly chewed over, as is how content is discovered, in an increasingly fractured media landscape (Kiss says she will go to twitter for recommendations about what TV to watch and ask friends for film recommendations. Netflix is working hard on helping people to discover stuff, says Dredge).
Data-driven commissioning gets a mention too. And the iPlayer. The future is iPlayer and TV is about managing decline? Discuss.
4oD gets a warm namecheck. And VEVO on YouTube.
And there’s a heads up about Chromecast, a dongle that allows content from one’s tablet or phone to be streamed through one’s TV set.
Meanwhile, the episode before that (July 18, lasting 35 minutes) saw Plunkett joined by Stig Abell, former chair of the Press Complaints Commission, and Nick Lawrence, a former editor at the BBC.
And they talked about the BBC annual report, including the costs of its inquiries into the Jimmy Savile affair, plus executive pay-offs and how much Jeremy Clarkson earned.
Also, they talked about the Daily Star enjoying a rise in sales – attributed entirely to its coverage of Big Brother, on sister TV channel, Channel 5.
Plus, there was a brief discussion about The Independent (average daily sales in the UK threatening to dip below 70,000), including speculation it might become a weekly magazine and that readers of its sister title, the i, aren’t necessarily aware that The Independent is part of the same stable.
There was more extensive chat about The Guardian, and its now substantial digital revenue.
Abell was of course asked his opinion on a proposed newspaper regulator – this one from newspaper publishers: the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).
Mishal Husain’s appointment as a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme was also briefly discussed.
Finally, there were reviews of the BBC Two sitcom, Family Tree; the drama, again on BBC Two, Top of the Lake, and the Channel 4 drama, Run.
And finishing off the July 26 episode was a review of the final episode of the BBC One drama, Luther, plus a review of PhoneShop on E4, Dara O Briain’s Science Club, on BBC Two, and The Americans, on ITV.
Find Media Talk on iTunes, here.
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