Daily Archives: December 3, 2007

The Panorama screw-up

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On May 21 last, the BBC Panorama programme screened a sensationalist ‘inquiry’ into allegations that wi-fi in schools posed serious health risks to children. Two viewers objected that the programme presented a misleading impression of the state of scientific knowledge and one interviewee complained that the scientific evidence had been presented in an unbalanced way and that the treatment of his own contribution was unfair to him.

The BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit has considered the issue and issued a ruling…

The programme reflected concerns about wi-fi which had been expressed by Sir William Stewart, Chairman of the Health Protection Agency, and it was legitimate to focus on questions raised by an eminent scientist with particular responsibility for public health issues. The programme made clear that its measurements of wi-fi and mobile phone mast radiation were taken at the points where schoolchildren were likely to be exposed to the respective signals, thus avoiding the false impression that the level of radiation from wi-fi was higher at source, and the results to date of the experiment on “electro-sensitivity” were correctly represented as inconclusive. However, the programme included only one contributor (Prof Repacholi) who disagreed with Sir William, compared with three scientists and a number of other speakers (one of whom was introduced as a former cancer specialist) who seconded his concerns. This gave a misleading impression of the state of scientific opinion on the issue. In addition, Prof Repacholi’s contribution was presented in a context which suggested to viewers that his scientific independence was in question, whereas the other scientists were presented uncriticaly. This reinforced the misleading impression, and was unfair to Prof Repacholi.

Further action

The Executive Editor/Commissioning Editor for TV Current Affairs discussed the finding, and the need to reflect the weight of scientific opinion effectively, with the Panorama team. The team is also planning a special session to explore issues of balance and fair dealing with contributors in relation to scientific and medical topics. The finding against this edition of Panorama will be marked on the programme website in the appropriate place.

Hmmm. I’ve just been poking round the Panorama web site and the aforementioned finding is nowhere to be seen.

Update: Nice email from Duncan Thomas who found it buried in the Panorama archive — it’s at the bottom of this page.

Formatting errors

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OFCOM, the UK Communications regulator, has been monitoring the output of Ocean FM, described as “an Adult Contemporary music and information station targeting 25-44 year-olds in South Hampshire”.

The regulator is Not Amused. Here’s the nub of the matter:

Ocean’s core music remit, as set out in the Format’s Character of Service, is to be an Adult Contemporary station for 25-44 year-olds in South Hampshire. Listening to the
station and carrying out analysis of the music logs for the three days, we noted that Ocean is currently interpreting its Adult Contemporary Format in a very Adult Rock type of way, with the inclusion during daytime programming of a high number of classic and alternative/modern rock tracks such as Arctic Monkeys/Fluorescent Adolescent; The Jam/Going Underground; Lynyrd Skynyrd/Sweet Home Alabama; The Cure/Friday I’m In Love; The Clash/Should I Stay Or Should I Go; The Who/My Generation; and The Buzzcocks/Ever Fallen In Love.

Nevertheless, we recognise that within the context of its Format Ocean could legitimately argue it is providing a more rock-leaning ‘Modern AC’ or ‘Hot AC’ type of format often seen in the USA and other commercial radio markets, and we also noted the inclusion of a number of more typical mainstream AC tracks on the playlist such as Robbie Williams/Angels; Simply Red/Fairground; 10cc/Dreadlock Holiday; Take That/Patience; Spandau Ballet/Gold; Michael Jackson/Off The Wall; Anastacia/Left Outside Alone; Madonna/Like A Prayer and Rod Stewart/You’re In My Heart.

The Format allows for (but does not require) up to 30 hours per week of specialist music programming, and Ocean provides a 1980s-themed ‘Skool Daze’ show and Alice Cooper’s rock programme, which are both aired on Friday and Saturday nights.

As previously noted, Ocean FM’s Format requires that “music programming will be
predominantly (up to 70%) current a/c [Adult Contemporary] tracks and those from the previous twelve months, along with a spread of a/c hits from across the years.” Ofcom’s monitoring of the station across the three days showed that, excluding Alice Cooper’s specialist rock show, an average of just 9.5% of the tracks aired by Ocean were either current tracks or tracks drawn from the past 12 months. (This compares to the minimum 51% of current and recurrent tracks that would be required to constitute the “predominant” ingredient of the station’s music programming).

We therefore concluded that Ocean is in clear breach of its Format, and a Yellow Card warning has been issued. If we find that these issues have been addressed when we monitor the station again, then the Yellow Card will be lifted.

There’s something deliciously quaint about this, don’t you think? It’s so redolent of the old world of broadcasting. And the idea of receiving a licence for a particular ‘format’ is just wonderful.

Thanks to Geoff Peters for spotting it.

Google enters the presidential race

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It seems that all the US presidential hopefuls have visited Google’s HQ. According to the New York Times,

The proceedings at Google are not unremittingly serious affairs. Mr. Schmidt asked Senator McCain, “How do you determine good ways of sorting one million 32-bit integers in two megabytes of RAM?” Immediately signaling that the question was asked in jest, Mr. Schmidt moved on. Six months later, Senator Obama faced the same question, but his staff had prepared him. When he replied in fluent tech-speak (“A bubble sort is the wrong way to go”), the quip brought down the house…

Note for non-techies: a bubble sort is a sorting algorithm which works by repeatedly stepping through the list to be sorted, comparing two items at a time and swapping them if they are in the wrong order. The pass through the list is repeated until no swaps are needed, which indicates that the list is sorted. The name comes from the fact that smaller numbers effectively ‘bubble’ to the top.

Aside: There’s something vaguely comical (and intrinsically pathetic) about politicians’ needs to associate themselves with what they perceive as the ‘leading edge’ du jour. The NYT piece points out that in the old days all presidential hopefuls went to visit General Motors. Now it’s Google.

And here’s another funny thing: ten years ago, Microsoft was perceived (by politicians, anyway) as the leading edge and so they all traipsed to Redmond. It’s interesting that the Cameroonian Tories have taken great care to associate themselves not with the world’s leading monopolist but with Google (CEO Eric Schmidt was invited to their annual conference). In contrast, Gordon Brown (who was the driving force behind the idea of giving Bill Gates a knighthood) probably still thinks that Microsoft is the big deal. The irony, of course, is that Google is all set to become, as it were, the next Microsoft.