New and Digital Media Stories: Week 2

Article from The Telegraph

The article addresses the fact that the BBC will be launching a new streaming service, on-line, in America as part of an plan to raise money from commercial sources abroad. The BBC's main aim is to increase revenues. In addition to this, the article evaluates the previous faults with the new and digital platform of a global iPlayer, which proved to be difficult in making money. 

Statistics and Fact included:

• The BBC intend to increase revenues by more than 15pc to £1.2bn by 2020. 
• Lord Hall has said cost cuts of 20pc will be required over the next five years. 
• ITV, which has been buildin up its own production business, ITV Studios, has threatened to sue over the BBC's plans.

In my opinion, I think it's an interesting move for the BBC to take as it will allow them to broaden their horizons in regards to revenues and actually ensuring that their is credit, in terms of money, to those who have worked hard and deserve it, instead of allowing people to watch fantastic, professional content, for free and illegally. 

Article from The Telegraph

The article looks closely at highlighting the power of brands such as 'Apple' and 'Netflix' and how they are taking over Television as a whole. 

Quotes included: 

David Zaslav, one of America's best-paid chief executive last year, said 

"Broadcasters and producers should resist pressure to serve up  programming peicemeal to benegit the technology giants"

"But the thing we've got to remember is every one of these things, and I don't mean to be pejorative, it's just a device" 

"Where's Netflix without our great content? How many iPhones would buy if all of our stuff wasn't on there?"

He further argues that the tendency for streaming services want to strip away channel branding to offer programmes individually as part of vast libraries is bad because ultimately "6,000 choices equals 0".  

In my opinion, I too, second the thoughts of Zaslav in regards to the conglomerates not even existing if it wasn't for the hard work in which producers ultimately create. Additionally, the I think it is noteworthy to point out, that audiences are often presented with too much choice, which can in fact, not being enough in itself and actually become a negative. 

Article from The Guardian

The article informs audiences about the recent discovery within some of the app's provided by 'Apple', that lead to peoples information and data being hacked and logged. Specific details include the fact that the app's were masked with malicious coding, which made the apps appear convincing to the developers. Researchers said that infected apps included Tencent Holdings' popular mobile chat app, WeChat, Car-hailing app Didi Kuaidi and a music app from internet portal NetEase. 

Facts and Quotes included:

• Some apps named by the two firms share a name with popular apps used outside China, but appear to be deliberately mis-titled versions of the apps intended to cash in on mistaken downloads.
• Chinese security firm Qihoo360 Technology said on its blog that it had uncovered 344 apps tainted with XcodeGhost.
• “We’ve removed the apps from the app store that we know have been created with this counterfeit software,” Apple spokeswoman, Christine Monaghan.

In my opinion, I think it is interesting to finally have some additional negativity associated with the brand 'Apple' - the fact that images were leaked previously, in relation to iCloud and now the dangerous, 'hacking' applications that feature on the app store. This leads me to question the actual validity associated with the brand, specifically, the fact that they were unwilling to share further information as to what applications had the malicious coding.