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Week of October 19, 2009

London The Libel Capital Of The World?

The lord chief justice of England and Wales, Lord Judge (yes, his last name really is Judge and he is the top ranking judge in England and Wales) says he is not proud that London has the legal nickname as the “libel capital of the world”.

It’s rare for judges to make public statements, but at a news conference marking the first anniversary of his appointment he covered many subjects including English libel law. Asked why people from all over the world want to sue for libel in the UK (it’s called “libel tourism”) even if the libel was not published in the UK, the judge said he was not proud. “We need to look closely at why it (London) is called the libel capital of the world and if it is, we have to try to persuade Parliament to change the law."

He said he did not like the fact that wealthy and powerful litigants from around the world came to the London High Court to silence criticism via libel actions. Indeed, American states don’t like that, either, and last week California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation that state courts have the right not to enforce British libel judgments. The governor was moved by a British libel judgment that ordered all copies globally of a book about a Saudi sheik to be destroyed even though the book, written by an American, was never published in Britain. 

The UK media has taken a tough stance against the judiciary for what it sees as being far too willing to make very large libel judgments, and for expanding privacy law without such legislation. The Daily Mail editorialized just last week, “With its draconian gagging orders, bizarre and monstrously expensive libel awards, and its insidious attempts to create a privacy law through the Human Rights Act, the High Court is renowned as the champion of the rich and secretive against the public’s right to know.”

Guardian’s US homepage To Go

Much has been made that a large percentage of visits to UK national newspaper web sites come from the US, helped by links by the like of Drudge and others. So the thinking caps went on around newspaper executive suites a couple of years back on how to capitalize on that and in the Guardian’s case it launched a US website with a US homepage. But two years on that homepage is disappearing and the US page will be within the Guardian’s UK site.

The Guardian blames “low traffic” for the decision, but it is not giving up on the US. It has established an in-house US sales unit selling online ads targeted to Americans and placed on the UK site.

Farewell Sir Ludovic Kennedy

Sir Ludovic Kennedy was one of the great British TV personalities and a constant campaigner to right injustice, concentrating on miscarriages of justice. He can take some credit because of his revelations of how in various cases the wrong men were hanged for the UK abolishing the death penalty in 1965.

Mark Thompson, BBC director-general, called him, “one of the giants of post-war broadcasting.  His integrity and the tenacity of his investigative journalism, particularly where he saw injustice, won him the respect and trust of generations of audiences." 

Sir Ludovic – he was knighted in 1994 for services to journalism – died Sunday of pneumonia. He was 89. For 56 years he was married to ballet dancer and actress Moira Shearer, perhaps best known for her starring role in one of the best-ever British films, The Red Shoes. She died in 2006.

More Problems For Dogan

As if Turkey’s Dogan Media Group doesn’t have enough problems what with a more than $3 billion tax demand hanging over its head, now a government entity says it has broken the law restricting foreign ownership to no more than 25%.

There had been a report (not in a Dogan newspaper) that the company has sold to Germany’s Axel Springer more than a 25% stake in its 28 radio and TV stations. (Ed. note: It was in 2006. See article with background here) The state media watchdog says the company has three months to resolve the issue.

The Kiwis Do Like Their Rugby!

Under a deal agreed with the New Zealand government, four TV channels will simultaneously show important games, especially Kiwi games, live during the 2011 Rugby World Cup which the country is hosting, and the government will assist financially with the rights costs.

Overkill? Not according to Prime Minister John Key, who obviously understands his political constituency. "You can never get too much rugby," he exclaimed. Which may be one reason why the government will help fund the Maori Television-TVNZ-TV3 joint bid for free-to-air rights, expected to cost about $5 million.

English strategy for French automaker
To the barricades

A shift to English branding terms by carmaker Citroën is noted by Les Echos (October 20). Phrases like “Creative Technology,” “My Way” (navigation system) and “Select Citroën” heard and seen in its French advertising are part of a new branding strategy developed by Havas, which started rolling out in January. 

Dealerships will soon be called “business centers” as new color schemes and signage arrive. To police the change-over the company will be employing “mystery shoppers.”

Citroën – similar to the French word citoyen, citizen – celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. (JMH)

How Loud Was That Commercial?

One of life’s big TV aggravations is that when the commercial comes on the sound seems to go way up. The TV stations say it ain’t so, but listeners know better.

So, here’s to California Democratic Congresswoman Anna Eshoo whose “Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act” has cleared the subcommittee level and now goes to the full House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Let’s hope it doesn’t get shouted down.

Will Newsprint Continue To Be A Huge Cost Saver?

Gannett and McClatchy have now reported their third quarter earnings and they have one theme – earnings are up and revenues continue down. Better performance is entirely coming from the cost side, not just from having fewer people but lower vendor costs, especially newsprint pricing.

Gannett Chief Financial Officer Gracia Martore said Monday her company’s newsprint cost was down 43% from a year ago. Some of that comes from less usage, but she also credits what she calls a "sizable imbalance in supply versus demand."

Newsprint suppliers are working real hard, however, to correct that imbalance by cutting back on supplies and newsprint prices have been on the up by some 5% over the past six weeks.

Who’s complaining?
Not Hungarians

People are just not complaining about radio and television, reported the Hungarian National Radio and Television Board (ORTT), which received but 14 complaints July through September and only 89 this year. ORTT President Peter Buczko said the decline in complaints cannot be explained as merely a summertime phenomenon.

Dr. Buczko offered that many Hungarians have simply “turned away from public life.” And, too, he said many people don’t know about the complaint procedure and a public awareness campaign would be a good idea.

Contrast this with the 21,000 complaints received by the UK Press Complaints Commission about one Daily Mail column written last week. (JMH)

ZO sees the bottom
Just wait until 2011

The advertising spending slump has reached the bottom, says media buyer ZenithOptimedia (October 19). Like competitor Carat, ZO expects this year to be rather ugly, lower than their July prediction, 9.9% down rather than 8.5% down. Oh, my!

“This downgrade almost entirely relates to first-half activity,” says the new forecast report. “Since then improvements in economic confidence have been accompanied by positive signals from media owners that the downturn is bottoming out.”

Next years recovery, says ZO, will be a 0.5% gain globally. Three months ago ZO predicted 2010 ad spending growth at 1.6%. Developing markets will gain 7.8%.

There is mild good news for those who can wait another six quarters. ZO’s 2011 forecast 4.3% growth; less in developed markets, more in developing markets. That would be  a gain over 2010 spending, which might be almost the same as 2009, which may be nearly 10% lower than 2008.

Predictably, all media but the internet will see lower ad spending in 2010.

“By 2011 we forecast newspaper ad expenditure to be 25 percent below its 2007 peak, while magazine ad expenditure is 28 percent below its own peak,” says ZO. “Prospects for other media are more encouraging: we expect television, cinema and outdoor advertising to return to growth in 2010, followed by radio in 2011.” (JMH)

Another international broadcaster moves to the Web
Cut, cut, cut

Radio Prague, the Czech international broadcasting service, may relinquish short-wave for the internet. The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which funds Radio Prague, wants the budget cut by 20%, says IDNES.cz (October 16). A Radio Prague spokesperson confirmed receiving a letter from the Ministry, with a suggested cut off date of January 7, 2010.

Several international broadcasters of modest means – nonetheless well respected – have abandoned short-wave broadcasting for other means. A few years ago Swiss Radio International (SRI) dropped its short-wave services and morphed into Swissinfo on the Web. High transmission costs and questions about listener impact were cited. (JMH)

Eurovision's Putin shout-out
when the cat's away?

The EBU - or the Eurovision team - wants a little attention. That's fine. A bit of PR magic is fun.

So, around goes a press release (October 16) coupling a quote from Russian PM Vladmir Putin about holding "a song contest with China, and Central Asia" with the EBU selling the Eurovision Song Contest format. (See Eurovision presser here)

Being a slow Friday news day, several new agencies picked up the little story. Good for the EBU press department, yes? One well known new agency even added to the tid-bit (in French), saying Mr. Putin's comment included Russia. But, well, the Eurovision Song Contest already appears in Russia. In fact, the Russian public broadcaster Channel One hosted it last year.

I'm all for creative PR. Last year the EBU sent around a funny piece about Legoland being turned down for the Eurovision Song Contest. (For a reminder, go here) (JMH)

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