This Thursday (March 8th) we’re launching a brand new podcast merging the world of true crime and classical music. You can read the full details here – the first one features the gruesome story of Haydn’s missing head which is just a flavour of what’s to come. So subscribe now and let us know what you think when it launches Thursday!
Last week we launched The Global Awards from London’s Eventim Apollo. It was an incredible night, featuring some great acts and moments from the blue carpet. We’ve posted the Global Awards video highlights here but you can watch the full version below. Needless to say we had a great response, not only during the public voting stage, but also whilst live streaming across social and onsite. Enjoy!
Earlier this year I was invited by Jonathan Kahn over at Together London to speak at his annual Agile Content Conference at Sadler’s Wells, London. This is a fantastic event looking at all aspects of agile content and it was a real pleasure to mix with content strategists working across a broad range of disciplines. You can watch all the presenters from the event here.
Yikes and holy cow. It’s been a while since I updated this blog but I wanted to let you know – I have the perfect alibi. You see, I’ve spent the last few months having a kind of mid-life crisis – only it’s been a very peculiar kind of crisis and probably a very British one at that. It doesn’t involve women, fast cars or huge quantities of fizzy-pop. No, dear reader, I stand here shamefully confessing that I have finally become addicted to… creative writing.
This week I was invited to speak at the annual Next Radio event in London – one of the UK’s biggest broadcast industry events. The conference was held at The Royal Institute which was a great choice of venue (especially as I’ve always been a Faraday fanboy) and a real honour to share our recent work in video.
Wow. What a week. Some very interesting results in the UK Election and now lots to debate as we discuss what’s next for Britain in the weeks ahead. Of course, we’ve been following the election extensively on LBC ever since Theresa May made her call for a vote back in April. Now that it’s over (although, you could argue the fun has only just begun!) I thought I’d highlight some aspects of our digital coverage you may be aware of.
Howdy! 🔥 Apologies for the radio silence but with the upcoming UK Election and preparing for Capital’s Summertime Ball, it’s just been a very busy time.🔥🔥🔥 Here’s some of my top reads from the last few weeks. Enjoy!🔥🔥🔥🔥 PS, I’ve just discovered how to add fire emojis to WordPress! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
As we all know, linear TV is really challenged at the moment, but these graphs showing how audiences dwindle over time for top US TV shows were pretty jaw-dropping. As Josef Adalian and Jeni Zhen write:
“We’ve been trained to understand that if we fall behind on several episodes of a show, we can always catch up later on streaming. Binge-watching an entire season is, for many, a better experience than watching week-to-week. The enormous sums Netflix and Hulu are paying to stream shows such as This Is Us underlines just how much value remains in network-TV fare. Sure, as measured by Nielsen, Empire is drawing half as many viewers as it did at its peak a couple years back. Some of those early adopters of the series have no doubt given up on the sudser altogether, but odds are many of those viewers are now simply watching in ways not captured by traditional metrics. (Another “encouraging” sign for the health of broadcast TV: Most big cable comedies and dramas are down, too — even the good ones.) None of this makes the double-digit declines shown below any less depressing for executives. Ratings declines result in fewer overall ad dollars, period. While networks are proving adept at opening up new revenue streams, they’d much rather their Nielsen numbers were going up.”
Elsewhere, I really liked the way the social team at Huffington Post are using their editors to front their coverage of news and entertainment on social. Sounds like a win-win to me.
I thought this article looking at why Alt-Right messages and memes during the French election didn’t work was interesting. Also, kinda reassuring that civilisation can’t be entirely derailed by just anyone with a good knowledge of Photoshop and Google Docs. Well, for now.
“There’s a big cultural gap that these groups have to jump over to expand their message,” said Ben Nimmo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank, who has studied the far right’s recent efforts in France. “The language and iconography of the alt-right is pretty specific. Most of it just isn’t going to translate well.”
I’m sure you’ve seen this video looking at texting and the internet in film. Just brilliant.
As an avid long-distance runner there’s nothing better than escaping the city for the country, negotiating numerous maps, losing your GPS signal and having to deal with the local farm dogs. Thank goodness for the National Trust Open Data site which launched recently – I now know where I’m bloody going!
Lastly, shameless plug, have you seen our fantastic new Capital Xtra responsive website? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Say ‘Hi’ to our brand new @capitalxtra website! https://t.co/eZrAWjLkZQ pic.twitter.com/ggdu7PT4sn
— Steven Wilson-Beales (@stevewbeales) May 18, 2017
So there you have it, a brief skim through some of the charity content strategy articles I found over the past few weeks. Let me know if you have other resources you’d like to share in the comments below!