Fish-hooked

This advert has been deemed the most offensive of all the year. Apparently this has the ability to cause distress to kiddies.

If that's the case why don't the parents have a nice chat with the kiddies and tell them this what happens to them if you put a cigarette in your mouth, and maybe some of the 8 year olds won't take it up - or maybe they'll just bypass the cigarettes and go straight on to the crack. What a cynical outlook on life!

This got me thinking about the kind of person who is likely to complain about advertising, what compels them to do it, do they have nothing better to do or is it a good thing, a kind of regulation from outside. Unfortunately, these complainers are, in all probablity, far outnumbered by the type of kill-joys who deemed the Quorn "touch my food, feel my fork" advert as a promotion of "bullying". Oh dear. Luckily, the ASA saw sense and didn't ban the advert.

Tomorrow I will be doing a round-up of some of the election media to come my way, in conjunction with my special election day blog on my main page! It's a polling day blogging extravaganza!

That's all for now,

Keep media savvy. x

Rebranding Kinky Porn.

Today's media blog was going to be rebranded, but after facing several budget cuts, I've decided to stick with the old familiar format.

The Daily Mail waves goodbye to its audience of "middle England" and instead ushers in the new era of "midBritain" so as not to offend anyone in any of the UK's other nations. Personally I would be greatly offended if anybody thought I was reading the Daily Mail, so whether I was in middle England or not would be far from prominent in my mind. It also strikes me that those indeed occupying middle England are probably unaware that Wales or Scotland exists.

Along the same lines of filth press, the Express' latest marketing ploy is the strapline "10p cheaper than the Daily Mail (and 10 times better!)". Now now kids, you don't need to fight over this, you're both as filthy as each other! In my eyes, this would be like discussing who is better, Hitler or Stalin? It's not really a contest you want to be in either way is it really?

Today's no.1 story on the BBC News website is entitled "When does kinky porn become illegal?". It comes of no surprise that the British public is obsessed with this kind of thing, but it's nice to have it reassuringly delivered from the most British of all institutions, the BBC. Nice work! Why they don't just rebrand violent porn as something along the lines of "unconventional and refreshingly daring!" is beyond me - but then again we all know what a big fan of rebranding I am!

And in other news, mind control still presses on, today I folded under the consumerist subplot and bought some more Smarties. The Smartie Party can indeed continue!

Anyway, I'm off to judge whether the latest installment of "Necro and Goat Porn Monthly" is just too darned illegal for my liking.

Keep media savvy. x

Saturday Night Television

Lots of people like to complain about Saturday night television.

They moan about how it's not as good as it used to be, and there's nothing to watch anymore.

I've got a useful tip for these people, turn off your television.

I think it's about time that people learned not to rely on the goggle box. Believe it or not, there are other ways to occupy your time. Hey - why not come on here and read my blog? Yay! It seems to be that we have a need to be entertained 24-hours-a-day.

Well I reccommend actually talking to your family and not expect to sit in front of the television at 5pm and have it babysit you right through to bedtime.

And after all, if you really want television to get better, if you turned it off they'd have to make something better wouldn't they?

Keep media savvy. x

Adverts, mainly.

Does Channel Four need to be publicly funded? I think the beauty of something like Channel 4 is that it doesn't have any government input, so it can be, potentially free. Then again, advertisers probably define what it does more than we'll ever fully know. I know one thing for sure, it wouldn't be right for Channel 4 to go along the same route as Channel 5 and ITV - i.e. producing rubbish and relying solely on American imports (respectively). Perhaps if Channel Four could come up with something a bit better than the now extraordinarily stale Big Brother to be this summer's breakout hit, then it might stand a better chance of a brighter future.

The ASA has banned some of the gambling adverts which are prolific on many of the lesser quality channels nowadays, given the vulnerable nature of the brains watching these channels (bit of a generalisation I know - but oh well). I'm a bit surprised they were allowed at all in the first place. Even I, a (resonably) sensible person has often wondered if I could end all my problems by winning big on a gambling site. And don't even get me started on that one where that stupid bint wins 20p and goes running round the house in excitement. I'd rather stick with a safer form of gambling - eBay.

The new Oxfam ad is pretty good as charity adverts go. We all know my ambivalence to the Donkey ad (see my main blog) but this one is a real departure for Oxfam. Away are the images of malnourised Africans, a sight which we are all too used to seeing (unfortunately). Awash with such images on television, we become blaze and forget the real cause. So good on them for employing Tim Burton-esque graphics to shed some light on the matter. This charity is much more deserving than any donkey charity anyway!

ITV's "finally" launched it's own on demand service. I can't quite figure out if ITV genuinely believe it when they say that "quality entertainment" is "finally" available, or if they are for once acknowledging the fact that they are incredibly slow and miles behind their competitiors, 4OD and BBC's iPlayer.

And finally, the Daily Sport has rebranded itself. I hope I'm not the only one who is sick to death of the "be a bloke, read the sport" advert that is being paraded around. I have long-been cradling the naive hope that this kind of bloke had become extinct, then again, praise indeed that they have in fact managed to learn to read anything that resembles a newspaper, even if it is the Sport.

That's all for now on this Media Ramble.
I hope you have enjoyed today's blogging extravaganza - next week this blog will be rebranded just like everything else out there.
Keep media savvy.

Mind Control

I'm starting to worry. 

I think the confectionary industry is controlling my mind. Today after watching the new smarties advert twice... I felt an overwhelming urge to consume some Smarties. 

The blue smarties are back, and with it so is my consumerism. After last week's rant against buying food and consuming stuff, I cracked and spent 17p on 3 carrots. Ever since then it's been completely downhill culminating in buying a multi-pack of Smarties! Yes that's right folks! I have been a hypocrite. Tut tut tut. I had to buy a multi-pack, they don't sell single packs in the shop, and my compulsion was so strong that it had to be done. I am weak. 

It has been pointed out that mind control can't be at work, because I don't buy everything I see on television, but that's probably just because I don't have the money for everything I see, so my mind acts out by forcing me to buy Smarties. I also have a strong desire to get my child immunised. I know, I don't have a child! The other day, I wanted to buy a pizza! I don't like pizza! What's going on?!

I'm meant to be media-literate, and yet the advertisers are taking over my mind! No! This must stop. What is the answer? Is the answer to stop watching commercial television? Maybe it is, but then how am I supposed to watch old re-runs of Mock the Week?! Answer me that!!!

Do the advertisers define what we think or just what we think about? In our capitalist society product proliferation is so rife that there is no way we can make a sensible decision about which shampoo to use. If we were to give each a reasonable trial, we'd die before we decided on the best one to use. So the question is - choice, is it good or is it bad? It's good because we have lots of nice things to look at, lots of nice things to eat. But the problem is, we can't possibly choose which is the best, and we'll probably all get fat. 

I know this blog isn't very good and probably hasn't made much sense, but then I'm in a chocolate induced stupor. 

I think it's time to finish today's blog, before something else makes me want to buy something. Why can't I think for myself anymore? 

I'm off to have a Smartie Party. 

16th April

So ITV, with their endless dirth of digital channels with 24 hours to fill have decided to enrage fans by missing out the second episode of new hit drama Pushing Daisies. How pathetic. I admit that this program is probably not the best program ever to be broadcast (then again, coming from ITV, maybe it is), but surely finding an hour to stick this program on ITV4 instead of showing 30-year-old repeats of The Sweeney wouldn't harm anybody.

So Shameless inspired the entire Shannon Matthews saga. Admittedly, no good plan starts with getting the inspiration from an episode of Shameless, but I hope it doesn't turn into another whipping boy for the tabloids and mid-markets to blame society's ills on.

The French are in uproar because their Eurovision entry is going to be in English in a vain attempt to win. Why they care is beyond me, nobody cares what the entry is like, as long as you've got enough countries that are basically the same as you and have not done anything controversial to make any enemies - you'll probably win, whether it's in English, Polish, Afrikaans or Gibberish. Having said that I don't think Afrikaans or Gibberish are actually allowed because they are not official languages of any European state.

Crappy Five channel "Five Life" is being renamed "Fiver" in a bid to attract younger audiences. Yes that will surely work.

Finally, after watching an episode of Animal Park today on BBC2, starring Ben Fogle and Kate Humble, I feel compelled to remind readers that Longleat is not actually that great, and I think you'll find that West Midlands Safari Park is much better, although Longleat does beat WM on its monkey front.

That's all for now.

Keep media savvy.

Welcome

Welcome, to my first, and possibly only media blog.

Inspired by my own media diary some months ago, I've decided to keep a short media blog as well as my other one, my fans will be wetting themselves with excitement at this thought.

This weekend, as I have been in Budapest, my media intake has been severely limited.

The only channels available in English are BBC World, CNN and Sky News. I have to say Sky is the worst as they have the same news constantly all day long. BBC World is OK, but sometimes they have very serious news on and I just can't handle that very often.

On the way here I read the Economist, where I found out that in the U.S. after some states have banned smoking in bars and restaurants, the number of drink drive accidents has gone up. Crazy yanks.

Well that's all for now, my next media blog will probably be more extensive after I get away from watching the same crap all day.

Keep media savvy.