The Original Sims

Back to radio for me; and it was the best fun I have had in ages. To Bangor for the Sea Bangor Maritime Festival to record some school children trying out sailing. Download the MP3 here or stream it from BBC iPlayer until 20 June.

The BBC’s IPTV project - Canvas - is now the subject of a BBC Trust consultation:

The BBC Executive has asked the BBC Trust for permission to develop a joint venture to promote a standards based open environment for internet connected television devices, otherwise known as ‘Project Canvas’. For consumers this would enable subscription-free access to on-demand television services and other internet-based content, through a broadband connected digital device.

There are lots of short hand ways of describing Canvas, but most are misleading. Best to take a look at what is proposed and respond. I will.

Here’s the link.

If you can use BBC iPlayer, go there now and watch or download ATL at the Hall - let me make it easier for you - use this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jcx8x/ATLLive_at_The_Hall/. When The Bottom Line started, it wasn’t tough to find talented bands to record for sessions, but it was difficult to get the budget to record bands.  When I eventually moved on to other projects, Mike Edgar took over and steered The Bottom Line to become Across The Line and the whole ATL brand.

Now talent like Paul McClean and Rigsy pushing the idea of a platform for young bands has gone further than Mike or I could ever have imagined.  ATL at the Ulster Hall is everything we could have wanted with an access all areas back stage pass, a white label vinyll and a good shot of whiskey bolted on.

Congratulations guys - you did it and I was happy to be in the audience.

Some of us called him “Rockin’ Robbo”; he got that name when he was working in Downtown.  “The wee man with the glasses. “ had other names.  But he was more a jazzer than a rocker. A husband and father first, a journo and a drummer after that and a great figure in Northern Ireland broadcast news.  And he was buried today.

Paul Robinson started in Armagh as a trainee reporter before going to the Newsletter and the Belfast Telegraph.  We worked together in Downtown – he a news man, me a DJ.  Even though it was a small place, music and news were kept separate, but Robbo brought the two together doing music news on a programme Ivan Martin and I worked on.

But he was a serious and brave journalist. Davy Lynass – probably his friend for longer than anyone – spoke at the funeral and told a tale of Robbo being out on a story and his car being hi-jacked by the IRA.  Paul was left standing in a field with one of the IRA men and told to stand still and wait. After a few minutes fidgeting and hopping around from one foot to another he broke the science “Hey, mate – any chance I can have a fag?”
The coffin arrived at the church to the sound of an Irish lament played on Uillean pipes.  I can’t say how many people were in the church.  It probably held upwards of 400.  I arrived early, but not early enough and stood with at least 50 others outside in the cold Bangor sea wind.

This generation of senior broadcasters and journalists who have reported so much horror and seen so much change are a tight bunch.  Whether BBC, UTV or the news papers, we are a big tight family.  We all know each other – most of us have worked with each other at some time or another.  I was almost always on the non-news side – for a while I did both.  We are all friends.

People cried.  People who are house hold names, who verbally pummel politicians and leave them looking foolish and inadequate every day, walked away shaking with emotion.  And there were politicians there too, shaken and sad.

The service ended with to Don Henley’s IGY radiating from the speakers out side the church. Hundreds of people spilled out of the church, shaking hands, supporting each other, many laughing.  Which was right – apart from drumming on every surface, smoking a fag every chance he could Robbo laughed – he laughed a lot and we lauhed today with him.

Thanks to whoever it was who nominated me for the Digital Circle Steering Group.  My and the other names now go forward to election.  But nomination in itself carries responsibilities and among them the most important is the CV.  That balance of fact and modest ambition while trying not to be too po-faced and having to write in the 3rd person which is always weird.  And trying not to name drop left right and centre, too. The CV will appear on the Digital Circle Website soon.  So I thought I should post it here, too.  One thing I can’t say in the CV - "Available For Hire from March 2009" - call me …

In March 2009, Davy Sims will mark 30 years working fulltime in Media. 
 
Starting as a presenter in Downtown Radio where he championed new and experimental local music, he moved to BBC in 1986 where he launched The Bottom Line – later renamed Across the Line. 
 
Just over half his 22 years in BBC was as a Radio Producer in Radio Ulster, Radio 1 and Radio 4. He produced the first ever BBC radio programmes on computers and the internet "Cyberphobia" and was contributor on Radio Ulster and Radio 2 on "The Web".
 
In 1999 he became the first Online Producer in BBC Northern Ireland where he launched a range of sites within the BBC NI portfolio.  Within 18 months Davy became Editor New Media where he further developed the department and portfolio to include Web, Interactive TV, Mobile, Communities (real and virtual) and activities around the digital divide (BBC Bus).  His responsibilities expanded beyond Northern Ireland into helping lead the change BBC’s Web 2 Strategy, and in particular the  development of Message Boards platforms and management, Blogs and Social Navigation and Networking across BBC.
 
Leaving the BBC in August 2008 he entered the wonderful world of the freelance producer and media consultant.  Davy’s clients range across broadcasting, publishing, charities/voluntary sector, public sector, marketing and communications. He is developing several sites and blogs. One site is aimed at selling Northern Ireland abroad and one blog is www.gaelgames.com a Podcast about Gaelic Games.
 
Davy has been a member of the Digital Circle Steering Group since just after its inception. He produced the Digital Circle podcasts.
 
His own personal and professional objectives include helping and supporting new talent and he as a long track record in the area including giving early opportunities to journalistic, presentation and music talent while in Radio and spotting and supporting a number of small digital business and individuals in the digital industries in Northern Ireland.
 
Where finance has been available he has always been keen on finding new ways of working and delivering creative ideas and production. 
 
His personal and professional network extends into the UK, Ireland and Europe, but is now beginning to develop links in North America.
 
Davy stills sees himself as a Content Producer; he can’t design a straight line and an only read code a little bit - but can’t write it.  His focus is on The Content and most importantly The Audience.   His biggest audience was 19 million listeners for the first Radio 1 Green Week; his smallest is the few people who occasionally visit davysims.co.uk (which at time of writing has an Alexa rank of 9,027,497 – down almost 3,000,000 from last week. So not very popular, then).
 
Davy has a strong belief that the digital industry in Northern Ireland can achieve remarkable results providing that the industry is results focused and works as one big organisation when needed and as small innovative organisations and businesses when appropriate.

Well, I am honoured - I know that can read as sarcasism - well it’s not.  Once upon a time in BBC Online as it was in those days I met young Martin Belam who was just starting to optimise several web sites including Across The Line which I was producing at the time (the web site, not the radio show.  I had established The Bottom Line which became ATL in the mid ’80s).

Martin and I later did some work together. He’s a very smart guy who I learned a lot from.

So, this humble blog appears in his line up of the year.  Chuffed as well as honoured, then.

I think Robert Andrews got it right in the Comment in Paid Content.

The timing has been unfortunate.  While comments fly about Brand/Ross which public and decision makers alike seem unusually well briefed and have opinions, the BBC Trust announced their findings on  that on the same day they published their provisional conclusions on tghe BBC’s proposal Local Video.

The Newspaper Society have been among the loudest opponents of Local Video. While the Local Video service  would in the short term  reach around  half the population of the UK, in the slightly longer term as broadband up take improves, it would reach almost all the UK’s population.

 “Ultra Local” video was being bandied about as a phrase of opposition. But while that sounds awfully like a BBC reporter on every street corner, that image is very far from the truth.  I had some input into the earlier drafts of the proposal before I left the BBC this summer.  The idea was most definitely not “Ultra Local”.  Northern Ireland for example would have been divided in to two parts; essentially east and west of the Bann (Derry to the west and Belfast to the east).  There would have been I expect no more than two or three stories a day from each part.  The audience would have had broadband access to News (hardly Ultra Local), Sport, Traffic and Weather.

We all pay a licence fee – we don’t like it but we are required to do it.  So it is the job of the BBC to provide a service to everyone – using whatever platform they can.

Newspapers don’t do video.  OK they sometimes host video content, but I’ve not seen anything that comes close to broadcast television.  And the video I’ve seen often misses the point of non-linear programme content; the inclination is to produce a three minute bulletin once or twice a day. In the age of 24-hour rolling news this is positively 1950’s broadcasting.

Yes, sales of newspapers are decreasing and that is not good for anyone.  Yes many newspapers established a web presence before the BBC.  But then the web was a new home for text (and some images too). Some newspapers were and are visionaries (first the Daily Telegraph who got to the web ahead of the pack and now the Guardian who lead with the digital strategy). 

There more sources of news we have, the better.  The greater the variety of opinion, the better.  It’s not good that the BBC become so dominant in providing news that other sources are drowned out.   But look how ITV ran from news when Ofcom reduced the requirement.  The BBC and ITV news are required to provide a impartial coverage in their broadcasting.  That extends into the web news provision.  Newspapers are not required to be imaprtial.  This extends into their web provision.  Just read the coverage of this debate on newspaper web sites — if you can find it.  If you can’t there will be a juicy anti-BBC comment on Brand/Ross.

I don’t want the BBC to be the only provider of local news on the web.  But I believe it should be there along with newspapers and everyone else who wants to provide their own local news.
The BBC Trust’s job is to represent us the audience.  In their announcement on 21 November they say:

“The BBC Trust has refused permission for local video because it would not improve services for the public enough to justify either the investment of licence fee funds or the negative impact on commercial media.”

Yes there would be a significant cost in the short term and in that they are right.  But in the longer term, the wider distribution of BBC content to a greater number of license fee payers would have (cost per head: a favored BBC measurement) been reduced and there would have been a better investment in future audiences for the BBC.

I don’t watch Strictly Come Dancing.  I’ve nothing against it; it’s just not my sort of programme.  Usually I don’t approve of people commenting on TV, films, radio, books they have not watched, heard or read.  But on this occasion, I think I can comment even with limited information.

This is what I know about Strictly Come Dancing;

• the only two participants I know about are Christine Blakely and John Sergeant,
• it’s in BBC 1 on Saturday evenings with related programmes on BBC 2 sometime during the week,
• there is a panel of experts who act as Judges,
• the audience vote for their favourite and the audiences text votes are the final word on who wins.

If any of those points are inaccurate, please use the Comments to correct me.

The final point is the most important.  This is a programme where the Audience decides the outcome.  If this is a programme about “best dancer” then the Audience should not have the final word.  Frankly what do they know?  My vote is equal to an expert’s vote – I know nothing about ballroom dancing.

So the audience vote for the dancer they favour.  They will not vote for the Best Dancer – because they will not know who the best dancer is.  The general public comprises millions of experts, but as a group they are not experts in anything apart from being expert in what they like.

Voting for John Sergeant makes a mockery of Strictly? Then choosing John Sergeant as a contestant makes a mockery of Strictly – the audience did not chose the contestants, the BBC did and the contestants accepted.  That’s their choosing job done – now leave it to the experts – the Audience, experts in what they like.  "He was put in the most awkward position, looking at the other dancers and knowing they were better than him," Forsyth said. "He must have felt guilty in a way."  Well, Brucie, he shouldn’t have been invited in the first place.  And unless he was prepared to see it through, he shouldn’t have accepted.  Following that logic, both the invitation and the acceptance was "awkward".

The BBC is reported to have plans to refund the cost of voting for Sergeant to the Audience.  Yes, they should, but that totally misses the point of an audience participation programme.  The Audience’s investment is not just the cost of the texts.  They pay the licence fee which pays for the programme including the Contestants’ fees.  They talk about the programme, and for all I know Tweet, blog and certainly club up in Facebook to write about it – thereby promoting the programme at no expense to the BBC.

Sure, this isn’t even close to the phone-in scandals last year. 
Sure, no-one is hurt and no ambulances have been called. 
Sure, John Sergeant has provided entertainment for millions.

But the point is that the producers, the BBC and John Sergeant have failed to see that this is a programme where the audience have at the very least a share equal to the total share of the BBC, the producers and the contestants. 

They are the one – to use the old movie term – who call the shots.

My former colleague Ashley Highfield, the former BBC director of future media and technology, is leaving Project Kangaroo after just four months to take the role of managing director for Microsoft UK’s online operation, MediaGuardian.co.uk revealed today.

Fantastic traditional showbiz evening in the Belfast Europa yesterday at the launch of Gerry Kelly’s biography. Old frineds like John Rosborough, Ivan Martin, Hendi, along with people I haven’t seen for a long time like Brian Kennedy and Kieran Goss.  The book was written by Gerry Kelly with Don Anderson (the first man to let me on the radio and still a great friend).

Phil Coulter did the offical launch shoe-horning the evening between returning from New York’s Radio City and Belfast’s Waterfront Hall. But the biggest round of applause was for the surprise appearance of Maeve Binchy.

Interesting conversaton with Ken Bloomfield about his forthcoming book about the BBC and the WMD crisis and the Hutton Report.  Sir Ken (former BBC NI governor) says he doesn’t expect to be welcomed warmly into any BBC building following the publication of the book. 

I look forward to it with great anticipation.