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