Has anyone else been watching True Blood? Well, judging by the viewing figures, a lot of people think its fang-tastic (sorry)

The first episode of the vampire drama, which stars Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer, pulled in 1.56m viewers (10.2%) between 10pm and 11.20pm and a further 145k (1.9%) tuned in on timeshift.

Not only am I little obsessed with the programme, I also love this innovative use of outdoor in New Zealand to promote the show – ready made stakes!

Climate Chief Howard Stern ‘of the Stern Report Fame’ has stated in an interview with The Times that People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to fight climate change. In the interview, Lord Stern said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”

UN figures suggest that meat production is responsible for about 18 per cent of global carbon emissions, including the destruction of forest land for cattle ranching and the production of animal feeds such as soy.

Having recently become a meat free convert it has opened my eyes to lots of things connected with meat and our insatiable need to consume it. We know it’s bad for the planet, vast amounts of studies suggest it’s bad for us http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jul/01/vegetarians-blood-cancer-diet-risk, it’s certainly not good for the animals. So why do we continue to consume it on an industrial level.

I would contest that we are addicted to meat?

The other week I engaged in a conversation which brought back a flood of memories.  The conversation started with me and a friend in that all too well known situation of sitting and watching the telly but being too lazy to turn the channel having of course lost the control (which I later found I was sitting on). 

After a great viewing of ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants’ we were faced with some very lame children’s programs.  The topic which inevitably followed was a comparison of today’s children’s telly against the stuff we remembered back from our childhood.  Of course the stuff we remembered was far better with some brilliant programs we that we managed to recollect. 
Favourite 5 were:
Fraggle Rock
Trap Door
Danger Mouse
Thundercats
Gummy Bears

This then brought us onto the best characters from these programs.
Penfold- Danger Mouse
Morph- Hart Beat
Odie- Garfield
Snarf- Thundercats
Gorden Gopher- Childrens BBC

I believe that’s a pretty good list but I got to say I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten some good other ones (like Roland Rat that has just sprung to mind!).  Feel free to add to the list and help prove things were better ‘back in t’day’.

Given all of the furore surrounding the BBC’s decision to allow BNP Leader, Nick Griffin, to appear of last night’s edition of Question Time, it was always going to be a high-profile show.

Interest in the show was clearly demonstrable, both at the BBC TV centre, with angry protestors reaching near the 1,000 mark at one stage, and also by the audience viewing figures.  Initial overnights suggest the programme pulled in around 8m viewers, approximately 50% share of total viewing and almost three times their usual audience draw.

Whether a poorly veiled attempt by the BBC to boost their ratings, or a genuine demonstration of freedom of speech, it really was one to watch.

BBC iplayer have been blocked from sharing their iplayer technology free of charge with other UK commercial broadcasters by the BBC Trust. To me this seems to raise two problems. Firstly iplayer is by far and away the best technology and platform for VOD currently in the UK and has also been a massive success. For other broadcasters to compete with this will require a huge investment in time, technology and people at a time when traditional advertising revenue is declining wont this strengthen the BBC’s position making it the dominant UK player.

More worryingly with the imminent launch of Hulu in the UK and Youtube starting to carry long form content (C4 has just done a deal for its back catalogue of programmes and U2 are to stream one of their gigs live on YT) the level of competition for ITV, C4, Five and Sky in the VOD area will increase further.

I just can’t help but think that we’ll look back at some recent decisions like this and the rejection of the Project Kangaroo and regret that we didn’t provide British broadcasters a better chance of competing in what is going to be a huge revenue area in the future. Once Hulu arrives and Youtube gets more long form content onboard it may be the begining of the end for certainly a handful of channels and maybe even some broadcasters over the coming decade.

It’s a Friday morning, Boyzone are the latest musical talent to be mourned over the airwaves, and I’m scrolling through the list.  The track list to be exact. The track list to our expertly compiled Spotify playlist; entitled Rocktastic.  For months we have been pooling our collective knowledge and tastes to form what is arguably becoming the greatest Rock collection of all time.  So there I am, deciding whether or not to retrace the glory days of the late Stephen Gately – when I notice a new button!    This may not be news to some of you, but I’ve not seen this arrow-through-circle logo before.  So I click it, to find that those chaps at 7Digital have secured a deal with Spotify, enabling users to buy and download tracks.  This is the very same 7Digital that agreed a similar deal with Blackberry (http://bit.ly/3lLvSF) and the same 7Digital that are now half owned by HMV (http://bit.ly/lRFdZ).  

I think we all agree that up until now i-Tunes has done a decent job of making a lot of money from their transactional service, charging about £8 per album, and has had no real reason to fear this particular challenger over any other.  However Spotify’s trump card now comes into play.  For £9.99 a month, premium subscribers now have access to an “Unlimited Download” feature (http://bit.ly/8jhiC) which essentially allows an unlimited number of tracks to be stored on a PC for a temporary period.

Now consider that Spotify premium is available on the iPhone (http://bit.ly/bR5RK), and you’ve got one almighty game of digital paper-scissor-stone…

Soon, Last.FM will join the fray through their partnership with XBOX (http://bit.ly/2xFFUa), enabling those gamers to stream music via their console.  So where does this leave the others; Pandora, MySpace, Grooveshark, we7, even Youtube!  Surely without innovation or a unique proposition, without awareness and loyalty, their days are numbered.

Have your say here.  What do you think of the future of online music?  And what of digital radio?  Or music television stations?  Is there room for this many outlets?

In the meantime; here’s the Rocktastic playlist link… enjoy

http://open.spotify.com/user/wiz1000/playlist/1UMaAppiTqSOPt8im6MS2L

I’ve just come back from a road trip through California and (perhaps a little tragically) I couldn’t help but notice and compare their advertising to that of ours over here in the UK.

One thing that struck me is the sheer amount of TV advertising – ads before the programmes’ introductory titles and then again straight after, before the content has even started, no restrictive minutes per hour for them it seems. Apart from the volume, the content is also very different, lots of prescription drug advertising (not allowed over here) with at least half the commercial dedicated to terrifying side effects. They also have  far more political advertising – NHS bashing seemed to be a key topic in the light of Obama’s proposed reforms!

Magazines didn’t appear to hold that much difference in terms of volume or style but radio ads were far more localised than over here. Personal addresses from small town business’ were not unusual – for instance Jonathon from Pahrump telling us he had lived there all his life and therefore was best to defend us if we happened to get caught DUI was typical.

Perhaps the most innovative use of outdoor media that I haven’t seen over here was a huge ‘wanted’ billboards detailing which murders, rapists etc were on the loose in the local area. Very reassuring…..

Just as one free London title closes, another two arrive.  As we all know, The Evening Standard is set to become free very soon but in the meantime the first female targeted free title has launched.  ‘Stylist’ will be distributed in London, Brighton, Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow and Birmingham and the publication has already created debate within the Maxus office. 

Personally, as I read the ‘Welcome’ on the first page I became increasingly frustrated.  Verging on the patronising, it included one typo and three, yes three, mentions of chocolate (in an article of c.150 words)!  It seems the editor can’t do a hard days work without a bar of Green and Blacks at her desk!  I read on and came across the Elsewhere section.  This focuses on World news in one compact page.  Now bearing in mind that within the ‘Welcome’ it stated that the editorial would focus on thoughtful journalism, dealing with issues that matter, I was surprised to find the first piece of World news to be on how the Russians are the vainest nation – putting more pictures of themselves online than any other European nation.  Other articles referred to dating in the US, nude hiking and weddings.  Now they are the issues that REALLY matter to us women, are they not?!

Others in the agency, however, really liked it and are glad that there is finally free title that targets women.  I guess it is only meant to be a quick read whilst your sat on the tube and therefore I may be getting a little over-sensitive. 

Anyway, I better get back to work…….now where is my Dairy Milk??