The Buffalo Blog

Zattoo - a gift horse?

Interesting news this morning surrounding the launch of Zattoo – a Swiss/US startup that retransmits content from UK terrestrial broadcasters online, paying them commission according to subscriber numbers.

At the annoyance of the main UK players, Zattoo appears to have slipped under the radar of copyright law. Or at least no one has yet succeeded in unravelling the growing tangle of internet legislation to work out whether this is actually legal or not.

Either way the company has an interesting model, simply broadcasting terrestrial content online and inserting ads every time a user switches channels (a tactic that could be quite successful with today’s channel switching population). The service already has over 2m subscribers in old-Europe so could become quite lucrative.

However, more so than many ‘download to own’ players, Zattoo’s streaming service will require a big slice of bandwidth, so is subject to the limiting constraints of the UK’s network infrastructure and the types of deals internet users are currently signed up to.

Whether this latest company will do any better than those that have gone before remains to be seen. What is clear is that the UK broadcasters should look on this launch as an opportunity, not a threat. No one has clearly won the war between 4OD, iPlayer and ITV.com, and the Zattoo service only streams live media so is not a threat to these or their planned ‘Project Kangaroo’ service.

Zattoo provides a new outlet for terrestrial content and could help garner a wider audience and possible new revenue. UK broadcasters would do well to look at the growing number of questionably legal streaming TV services now online to see just how well this could go down.

Media unsympathetic to Prescott 'suffering'

"I sympathise with bulimics but I’m deeply suspicious of Mr Prescott’s lurid soul-baring". Thus screams Stephen Glover’s headline in the Daily Mail of the somewhat astonishing news that Britain’s most (in)famous pie-eater has in fact been suffering from a serious eating disorder.

One of the best known and most vilified politicians of recent times, Mr Prescott has always courted controversy, never more so than by exclusively telling the Sunday Times of his bulimia ordeal in a move which coincided with an impending book launch.

The ever-cynical British media have faced a dilemma as to how to react to the announcement – they can’t be seen to be unsympathetic to a life-altering disease, while sudden affection for Mr. Prescott would only be viewed by the public as disingenuous.

The Guardian sympathetically began their article by claiming that "John Prescott was praised by eating disorder experts yesterday", although their headline, "I took refuge in stuffing my face" belies genuine sympathy. The Times, one feels, is kinder to Prescott, focusing on the message that Prescott presents to fellow sufferers that they should get help.

The Sun, somewhat predictably, ridiculed the "Fat Controller". Trevor Kavanagh’s lurid claim that Prescott has been misdiagnosed attempts to shift the issue to Prescott’s "greedy incompetence". A Q&A of bulimia and the phone number of a bulimia helpline cover up their flagrant disrespect for any suffering felt by Prescott.

The Telegraph was always unlikely to be kind to Prescott, although their approach is cleverer and more subtle than the tabloids’ full frontal attack. They lead with the question of whether Prescott kept his bulimia from Blair, focusing on the negative political implications that the story could have for the Labour party rather than the human aspect utilised by other papers.

Brown in a spin?

The Telegraph’s denouncement of Gordon Brown’s ‘excessive’ spending on PR consultants yesterday serves again to highlight the ongoing political vs. media battle that has raged on for as long as the two institutions have existed. The politician says something and the media either picks it to pieces or praises it depending on the paper’s respective political allegiances, this is how it’s always been and probably always will be.

Therefore, the complaint about Brown’s love of spin-meisters surely stands up? Why allow him to tip the balance in Labour’s favour, disrupting a long standing and healthy democratic tradition? The public need to read all sides of the debate to develop an informed view of what’s going on.

But these criticisms don’t take account of the changing face of the media in modern society. The increased intensity, growing sensationalism and bi-polarisation of some of today’s media is fuelling a climate of protectionism amongst the political classes. The Telegraph article itself is a prime example. Freedom of Information laws, those that will have allowed figures and information on Brown’s use of PR advisors, have become the bread and butter of the politician-basher.

Politicians are rightly scared of drawing fire from the media, even more of becoming a target of a media hate campaign that has become a regular feature in the UK press. The press can easily destroy careers at the drop of a hat whether with or without cause.

Intensity has increased on both sides of the fence and spending on media advisors is simply a natural progression of this. Whether it be Alistair Campbell, Andy Coulson or someone else, their primary task is trying to keep politicians in a job. Until something gives, which is highly unlikely to happen, politicians will be keeping their ‘media advisors’ whether people like it or not.

The end of the dodgy blogger?

On May 26 dodgy corporate bloggers and rogue PR consultants may take a moment to reflect on their chosen paths as the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 come in to force.

Among the countless additions and modernisation the regulations bring is one highly important nugget relating to transparency – a change that will have a sobering effect on the more unscrupulous of us.

Mentioning no names, those that have previously got away with a slap on the wrists and a hit to the reputation after their undercover blogging activity could now end up reflecting on their actions in the slammer.

Transparency under the new regulations is paramount i.e. representing yourself as a helpful consumer, an excited user of a client’s product etc, is now completely illegal and could attract criminal charges.

To those consultancies that have already taken the transparent route into the blogosphere, these regulations should bring no worries. For those that are still operating on the wrong side of the fence, this may be a fitting moment to think about changing one’s ways. Covertly advocating a client’s cause is now not only a crime against reputation, but a crime against the law.