VirGiN MeDiA To BaCk BiG BroThEr...

Virgin Media has been confirmed as the sponsor of Big Brother 8 with the company's mobile arm to be the main service promoted.

Virgin Media has signed on for the main summer series - as revealed by MediaGuardian.co.uk - but not next year's Celebrity Big Brother version.

Channel 4 has not yet announced if there will be a Celebrity Big Brother in 2008. However, it is understood that Virgin Media will be given first refusal on extending the sponsorship if the trouble-laden show runs without a hitch this summer.

"Of course we had worries [about this year's Celebrity Big Brother], we would have been foolhardy if we didn't," said James Kydd, the managing director of marketing at Virgin Media.

"We spent a lot of time talking to Channel 4 about how they were sorting out their internal processes to make sure there wouldn't be any sort of escalation again. But Big Brother is always controversial, it is the nature of the beast. We just wanted to be reassured that there wouldn't be a situation that got out of control again."

Carphone Warehouse pulled out of its £2.5m a year sponsorship of Big Brother following the Shilpa Shetty racism row in January.

The Big Brother sponsorship package includes branding and advertising opportunities across TV, video-on-demand, online, radio and mobile.

"The sponsorship will be split between our mobile and media services," added Mr Kydd. "What Big Brother does is give a fantastic opportunity to bring to life quadplay in action and the core 16-34 demographic BB reaches is a bullseye for mobile. Virgin Mobile will be the lead sponsor but we will absolutely push Virgin Media messaging."

My ComMentS...
I think that its really conterversial for virgin to support big brother since carphone warehouse dropped out as they felt that them sponsoring Big brother would ruin their reputation, since they adgree with the public that Jade Goody was being racist. It will bring a great deal of profit to the company.. but how will the public respond to this?

RTL VoWs To TuRn ArouNd FiVe..

The RTL Group chief executive, Gerhard Zeiler, has admitted he was disappointed with UK subsidiary Channel Five's falling audience share but pledged to turn the broadcaster's fortunes round with its multichannel strategy.

Five's audience share fell to 5.9% in 2006, down 0.7 percentage points, proportionately the worst performance of the five main UK terrestrial channels.

Mr Zeiler said the launch of digital services Five Life and Five US in October would drive growth in 2007, and pointed to the recent management shake-up that saw Lisa Opie made head of content.

"Am I happy the audience share went down? No - otherwise we wouldn't have changed the programme team," Mr Zeiler said.

"The change is more radical, exactly what we expected. We have a new director of content, Lisa Opie, and we fully trust in her, that she will turn it around in terms of audience share. Our main goal is to grow our position

http://media.guardian.co.uk/city/story/0,,2029395,00.html?

My ViEw...

Channel Five was the last edition to the terrestrial channels. When channel five was launched in 1997 it was new to the world as SKY TV was expensive and not many people had it. Now that SKy is in demand terrestrial channels like Channel 5 are losing their viewers. Most people watch channel 4 for documentaries, ITV and BBC1 for their regular shows such as Eastenders. Since SKy is so developed, each channel caters for their audience which allows the viewers to chose what they want to watch, instead of waiting for a ceratin programme to come on.

EsSay QuEsTion…

UsInG ThE ComPaRiSioN Of TheSe TeXts As YouR StaRtiNg PoiNt, ExPloRe ThE MeDiA IsSues AnD DeBaTes WhIcH ThEy RaiSe…

‘The Revolution will not be televised’ by Gil Scott-Heron and ‘Your revolution’ by Sarah Jones are two texts that covey serious issues and debates about society during their time. Due to inequality and racial abuse, society was forced to repress their personal views and live in a democratic state where the government decided on what was seen the right and formal thing to do. Both artists express their views on society and how it affects them and the people with similar problems.

Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘The revolution will not be televised’ critiques the status quo and challenges the establishment. The beat to the song is slow but catchy as it is repetitive throughout. Since this song discusses serious issues having a repetitive beat is vital, as it allows the audience to remember it along with the words. Heron raps slowly and clearly with a deep masculine voice. This again reinforces the sincerity tone of the song and informs the audience on how important the issue is. ‘There will be no pictures of you and Willie May pushing that shopping cart…’ Heron here is stating that black people are only seen as criminals and insignificant to society. He makes close references to the Marxist theory as he believes that society is easily influenced. The song was written in 1972 which means that a capitalist society did exist and black people were not as much considered.

Sarah Jones ‘Your revolution’ takes a similar approach by using the same methods but by projecting a feminist voice. In her song she discusses females in the rapping industry and how unequal it is. It is a track about female empowerment and women’s rights. The beat is slow, and regular like Heron’s. By doing this it reinforces the point she makes. Like Heron, Jones is critiquing the black people in the media and telling the world how the music industry is patriarchal. She mentions the issue about women in the music industry with close references to Foxy Brown about how they sell their body to get higher status. Throughout the song, Jones uses parody to portray how she feels about men in the music industry by mocking the strong males in the industry such as LL Cool J. She uses intertextuality to emphasies her point by singing his song. She mocks him as he undermines women. She feels somewhat hatred towards artists like him as in his lyrics he has strong references to sex and has the power to influence the people who listen to his music. It’s down to males like him that women are still objectified today.

A key theorist, Laura Mulvey argues there is a the active male hero and the passive female characters who's mere purpose is their quality to be looked at ness and they are objectified as sexual objects and become objects of the male gaze. This is key to rap music as it is a typical convention used in rap videos for women to be inferior to men. ‘Your revolution’ is a song that rejects all the typical conventions and stands for its own. We see it in the majority of rap videos, with big famous artist such as ‘Snoop Dogg’ and ‘Dr Dre’ have semi naked females dancing in the backgrounds of their videos. They objectify the woman as they refer them to ‘bitches’ and ‘hoes’ and state that their only use is for pleasuring a male. Jones goes against all these acts and shows that she can be in the music industry like every other woman however does not need to show or sell her body to be successful.

In conclusion both texts are similar in there ways as they both do not conform to the typical conventions that occur in rap videos. They are both projecting there voices in what they believe in. they are similar as they are dealing with real life issues which are considered as important to them as well as to society. Even though Heron’s song was released at an early date in comparison to Jones it shows that ways have not really changed and that society and still remains to be the same to a certain extent. The purpose of the songs was to create awareness and inform people about the contemporary issues.

NeWs ViewS...

How Would You PrioriTise TheSe NeWs VaLueS?
I would priortise the news values in which the readers impact on the article. It would depend on how the audience intrepretate the news and what they gain from it. In my opinion composition would be the most important since it balances the news.

What Is GateKeEpinG?
The Gatekeepers are usually the editors, who are responsible for selecting the and ordering the news broadcasts or selecting and planning the newspaper layout.

What do We Mean By Bias?
Bias would mean when a story is one side viwed and influenced by the attitudes and background of its interviewers, writers, photographers and editors. People could be biased through selection and omission or bias through placement for example.

Galtung and Ruge's NeWs Values...
Frequency- The time span of an event and the extent to which it fits the frequency of the newspaper.

Threshold- How big is an event? 'Celebrity Big Brother' JADE OUT'

Unambiguity- how clear is the meaning of the event?

Meaningfulness- How meaningful will the event apper to the receivers? 'Sucide bombings in IrAQ'

Consonance- Does the event match the audience's expectations?

Unexpectedness- Father’s hug 40 years ago turned out to be death sentence for his daughter” the event is highly unpredictable.

Continuity- 'Big Brother Jade and racism story' This story has been featured sevreal times in the news and will continue to remain in the news untill things are resolved.

Composition- This is a matter of the balance of the news.

Reference to elite nations- This relates again to 'cultural proximity'. Those nations which are culturally closest to our own will receive most of the coverage.

Reference to elite persons- The media pay attention to important people. "Cameron declares his faith in a state education for his children”

Personalisation- This connects with umambiguity and meaningfulness.

Negativity- Bad news is good news in term of what is reported.

CuLt OF The CeLebrIty...
How much celebrity driven media do you consume? Do you consume these texts in spite of the celebrity focus or because of it?

I dont really purchase many magazines but recently i did buy Heat, Ok and HEllo which featured the Big brother gossip about Shilpa, Jade and Daniella. I was bored so thats why i bought it but i dont go out of my way to buy these magazines weekly.