A NEWSPAPER editor – believed to be Britain’s longest-serving – is stepping down, after almost 40 years in the post.
Drew Cochrane, editor of the Largs & Millport Weekly News, is quoted in his paper (here), as saying: “I think that 40 years in the post is a significant landmark and that I should look at putting my energy into other pursuits.
“I was the country’s youngest editor at 22 when I took over the running of the Largs paper in October, 1974 and I have been joking, in recent years, that my ambition was to become the oldest. I’m probably there now.”
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BEGINS The Guardian, here: “More than two million viewers watched the second Scottish independence TV debate between [First Minister] Alex Salmond and [Better Together leader] Alistair Darling broadcast by the BBC [on Monday evening], following controversy that the first head-to-head on STV was not broadcast across the whole of the UK.
“The head-to-head, which was widely regarded to have been won by Salmond after the First Minister of Scotland leader lost out in the first debate earlier this month, had an average audience of 2.3 million for Monday night’s broadcast on BBC1 in Scotland and BBC2 across the rest of the UK.
“BBC1 Scotland attracted 843,000 viewers, with a further 1.7 million viewers, a 6.8 per cent share of the audience, on BBC2 between 8.30pm and 10pm on Monday.”
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COMING out right now: the circulation figures for regional newspapers, including The Scotsman and The Herald.
All will be revealed tomorrow on allmediascotland, including in the feature, The Media in Figures.
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ENTRIES are being invited by a media awards competition celebrating the best of Britain’s TV programmes.
Say the award organisers, the Royal Television Society: “Britain’s leading forum for television and related media, has today issued a call for entries for the RTS Programme Awards 2013/2014. The awards seek to recognise programmes which have made a material and positive contribution to their genre through originality, creative risk-taking or due to their standard-setting quality.
“For the second year running, the RTS Programme Awards welcomes entries from creators offering content on non-broadcast platforms, providing the submitted programme is a UK production (with the exception of the International Award).”
Read more, here.
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BEGINS The Drum media and marketing magazine: “[Scots tourism agency] VisitScotland has launched a ‘brand newsroom’ powered by Mynewsdesk to host its news releases and social channels in a single place.
“The investment comes ahead of events such as the Ryder Cup, during the year-long Homecoming 2014 and follows recent international coverage of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and the Edinburgh Fringe.”
Read more, here.
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STARTS the leader column in today’s Herald newspaper: “Social media has been a significant part of life now for a nearly decade, yet there are still too many instances of wrongdoing online not being tackled when it would be firmly dealt with if it occurred in the street, pub or school playground.”
Read more, here.
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BEGINS Brian Ferguson, in The Scotsman (here): “The BBC has snapped up the rights to adapt another best-selling series of Scottish crime novels.
“Peter May has revealed he has agreed a deal over the Lewis Trilogy, which is set in the Outer Hebrides.”
In another article, Ferguson writes about the BBC drama, Sherlock, winning handsomely at the Emmy [television] Awards, in the USA, including for co-creator and writer – Scot, Steven Moffat.
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