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How-Do weekly Wrap - 3 April 2009 - Richard Frediani |
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Friday, 03 April 2009 |
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Welcome to the weekly Wrap from How-Do - media news for the North West. 
The Wrap's guest editor this week is Richard Frediani. Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said ‘‘A week is a long time in politics’’. A glance at the last seven days of How-Do makes me feel just the same about the North West media landscape.
The BBC move North continues apace with the Media City development. It’s good to see yet another Five Live voice in Peter Allen attempt to dispel the London centric view that moving here isn’t the modern day equivalent of being put on a boat to Australia.
Meanwhile I chuckled when a colleague told me he’d seen around twenty BBC staff from London on an ‘official’ tour of a village near Manchester (think of male sheep and backsides!) looking for somewhere to live. If it had been April Fool’s Day I would have thought he was pulling my leg. Just who is paying for that?
In the case of journalists at the MEN it appears to be them rather than the taxpayer. They dipped into their own pockets to pay for a full page advert in the Guardian to highlight job cuts at the paper. These are difficult times in the local and regional press and we all hope the Government’s Digital Britain review will provide some answers.
The belt tightening at GMG didn’t stop it spending £2m rebranding Century as Real Radio but as the North West is a fiercely competitive radio market, quickly establishing the brand will be crucial.
By contrast one of its competitors Key 103 is celebrating 35 years of broadcasting. It’s amazing to trawl through the archives to see some of the names that have worked there. But I’d like to pick out loyal newsroom staffers Paul Lockitt and his boss John Pickford. I remember when I was knee deep in splicing tape and razor blades learning some very early tricks of the radio trade from those two.
Finally were you fooled on April 1st? All credit to the Salford Star for their spoof about World War Two bombs at Media City with a quote from Alf Pristir (!) which was followed up by the MEN as an ‘exclusive’ the next day. If a week is a long time in politics, 24 hours seems a lifetime in regional news.
Richard Frediani is head of news Regionals & Channels ITV
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