Open Road

Tuesday Jan 22nd 2008

The BA crash and the media

Guest blog from Andrew Caesar-Gordon, managing director of Electric Airwaves, a leading media, crisis and presentation training agency. www.electricairwaves.com

Last Thursday’s crash of a British Airways Boeing 777 at Heathrow Airport should have been a media disaster for BA. Yet within 24 hours, BA had turned its worst accident in 32 years into a PR triumph. It has emerged with reputation enhanced and several key messages/ implied competitor differentiations firmly locked in the public consciousness. How did they do it?

Monday Jan 21st 2008

News Views

After just one week, the evidence shows that ITN’s revived News at Ten is not doing nearly so well as hoped.  BBC’s Ten O’Clock News is still in the lead as far as the ratings are concerned and Huw Edwards is winning the war of the silver foxes in a straight shoot-out with Sir Trevor McDonald.

Thursday Jan 17th 2008

State meddling in the media is bad for us all

The following piece written by Martin Le Jeune and Russ Taylor appeared in the Financial Times on the 17th January 2007

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/91df1b7a-c451-11dc-a474-0000779fd2ac.html

Thursday’s media industry gathering, the Oxford Media Convention, is subtitled “Communications – the next decade”. There will be much talk of convergence and consumer power. There may even be a cameo role for the free market. But there should also be concern that the next 10 years may not be that great unless the UK government and its regulator, Ofcom, mend their increasingly interventionist ways.

Wednesday Jan 16th 2008

Labour Lexicon

To add to his many talents as politician and prime minister, Gordon Brown has now started a nice line in neologisms.  Speaking yesterday about the antics of Peter ‘Mr Orange’ Hain, Brown referred to his colleague as having committed ‘an incompetence’.

Wednesday Jan 9th 2008

Coming back in New Hampshire

Well, 5 days is a long time in American politics.

When I turned CNN off at 3.30 a.m. this morning, the final New Hampshire poll suggested that Senator Barack Obama had a double digit lead over Hillary Clinton. All day Monday the broadcast media aired segments highlighting the size of Obama crowds at varied events, pundits of all political complexions were noting the unique enthusiasm for the Illinois Senator and following - as they so often do - the front page of the NY Times querying whether or not Bill Clinton’s stump magic had finally dissipated.  Talk shows speculated about “the end of an era” and “the passing of a torch.” “Panic” was the NY Post headline running over Mrs Clinton’s photo this morning.

24 hours later it is amusing to see the media scrambling to explain another improbable, unpredictable Clinton turn around.

Americans love comebacks but this Clinton victory has surprised most people.

How did she do it? It’s still too early to tell exactly.