#ThanksDanny – How Twitter silenced the Daily Mail (and Aidan Burley MP)
Greg Grimmer ranks media owner performances during the Olympics – with a gold for the BBC, a ‘just outside the medals’ for The Times, a ‘did not start’ for C4 and a disqualified Daily Mail…
My postbag this month tells me that you, my loyal readers, are demanding Team GG’s take on the Olympics.
I pleaded with the editor at MediaTel Towers to let me find a new angle on the wall to wall coverage of ‘the greatest show on earth’.
With a degree of difficulty – that would make even Tom Daley blanch – it was agreed that a ranking of the relevant media owners’ performance so far is the least trodden route among the cacophony of media noise greeting the golden success of the London Games.
So at the halfway stage, the gold medal goes to…
GOLD – BBC
After the disastrous coverage of the Jubilee, when sycophancy was mixed with braggadocio by the nation’s broadcaster, I was one of many that feared that the self-styled keeper of TV’s crown jewels would end up messing up a home Olympics by concentrating on a small number of ‘celebrities’.
Maybe it’s the sheer spread of talent in the team, or the new technical ability to deliver 24 live streams across all sports, or the excellent use of international sport experts (the mad Olga Korbut notwithstanding). Unarguably the BBC is having a truly great games.
Personally I have been simultaneously watching video online, while reading the multi-sport live text updates on a second screen and listening to the ever-excellent 5Live radio coverage.
If they finally dispense with the services of Mark Lawrenson before the start of the football season then I will pay my licence fee with a never seen before vigour.
Well-done auntie – tremendous performance.
SILVER – Twitter
From the stupendous Opening Ceremony onwards the real time ‘live’ nature of everyone’s favourite micro-blogging site has meant that the man on the Clapham Omnibus (kids, ask your Granny) is using Twitter like never before.
The digerati were of course always going to claim these Olympics as the first Twitter games but the reality is it is acting less as a news service and more as either a celebratory medium, or even better a comedic outlet for the schadenfreude at the loss of others.
I have been swapping tweets with Sir Matthew Pinsent about the demise of that once great sporting nation Australia. The best so far – “In 1908 Australasia competed as a single country, maybe they should consider this again for Rio.”
BRONZE – Facebook
I’m at the Beach Volleyball, Water Polo, Judo. Here’s a ‘Gloatograph’ of me in the Olympic Park, at my Olympics party, with the Ukrainian weightlifter.
The Zuck will be pleased as punch – the Book’s corporate vision of the world sharing more stuff is happening in spades at this Olympics and with a very un-British sense of joy.
My newsfeed is full every day of virtual and real friends sharing their Olympic experiences – some have obviously done better in the ticket ballot than me – but the green-eyed envy of Brits living in Sydney, New York, Hong Kong and elsewhere really shows the greatness of these games… they all want to be back home to share our joy.
Just outside the medals
The Times
Most of the newspapers have done a good job with their Olympics coverage but I think a special mention should got to The Times, which seems to have jumped on the bandwagon early on and also secured good commercial deals with big global sponsors such as Samsung to enhance both its print and (paywalled) digital coverage.
It claims to have sold 100,000 extra copies of its special Olympic supplement. A phenomenal performance especially when you consider the amount of ‘free’ Olympic material there is in both print and online.
Bringing up the field
ITV (and others with no coverage)
Not a lot ITV can do about the success of the British team and the power of the BBC to offer carpet bomb coverage of the games but as Adam Crozier will have feared it has been a ratings disaster. His team at ITV will be thanking their lucky stars that it is only a two week event.
Last
NBC
The American official broadcaster seems to be making gaff after gaff after gaff following its expensive purchase of the Olympic rights.
I got a tweet last night from an American friend berating even their coverage of the blue riband event – the 100m. Thank goodness again for our gold medal service from the Beeb.
Did Not Start
C4
For Channel 4 the whole Olympic experience must be very nervous as they await the Paralympics, however I think they may have just got lucky.
Rather than being muck after the Lord Mayor’s show I expect Channel 4’s extensive coverage of the trials and tribulations of the Paralympics to extend the feel good experience and could be the surprise commercial TV success of this Olympic year.
Disqualified
Daily Mail
Now I am an admirer of the commercial team at the Daily Mail and if truth be told I even respect their editorial team for consistently producing a product that finds an audience.
However, the hypocrisy highlighted by their turnaround from the amazing Opening Ceremony where they belittled the multi-cultural nature of its centre piece to claiming Jess Ennis as one of their own “True Brits” was staggering.
Don’t believe me? Read this tweet from comedian Dave Gorman – http://yfrog.com/hw702jjj. It would be funny if it wasn’t a repeat offence!