Masterchef returns: Did you spot the brands?

Last night was eagerly anticipated in my house for the return of Masterchef – and thank goodness they’ve ditched that awful X-Factor style audition process!

Aside from looking wide-eyed at the sheer culinary talent on show (maybe not so much in the early stages, especially the poor girl that thought her sole was plaice!), Masterchef gives me a chance to look out for some fascinating food and drink product placement.

Working in Food and Drink PR and with a genuine interest in brands and logos, I’m probably more aware than most of product placement. And although Masterchef may be less commercial than some programmes in its brand promotion, there were still some top names on show. Did you spot them?

Those who take note of packaging might have noticed the Waitrose ingredients or Colman’s Mustard – the show’s producers may have covered the name up but you still can’t fail to recognise that British classic! Even more subtle was the careful placement of Olive and Cook Vegetarian magazines in the waiting room.

On the equipment side, Pyrex jugs, Circulon pans and Salter weighing scales were all evident in the first episode, not to mention the unmistakable KitchenAid Artisan Mixer lurking mysteriously on the back shelf – as it does so often on TV cookery shows.

So how many did you get? You’ve got another chance to play tonight...

Hypocrisy stalks reaction to Panorama FIFA investigation

Contrary to much of what you will read this morning, there was plenty of new information in last night’s Panorama programme which exposed million dollar bribery and corruption in FIFA. The Sun, shamelessly, wraps itself in the flag and takes the opportunity to further News Corporation’s anti-BBC agenda declaring it has ‘sabotaged’ the bid. Inside, Ian Wright labels the programme, “brainless, betraying and cretinous” and “ridiculously unpatriotic”.

Much more surprising has been the reaction from some of our most respected journalists, who seem to have forgotten that they should be wielding the ‘simple sword of truth’ not aiding and abetting cover-ups.

Henry Winter in the Telegraph wrote this today. “Panorama have a right and duty to investigate, even into events a decade old, but sitting on the story until the eve of the World Cup vote smacked of cynical ratings-hunting.”

Er ... well isn’t that what the media does Henry? Are we to believe that you have never written a negative story about a club or a manager designed to appear on the morning before a team plays? Are we to believe that if this information had come into your possession you would have sat on it until the cricket season?

What’s more, I’d be interested to know what your current employers, who spearheaded the investigations into MP’s expenses, think about this interpretation of your role as a respected journalist.

I’ll give you another good reason why Panorama got its timing absolutely right. Last night’s programme alleged that Jack Warner, a member of the FIFA Executive Committee ordered $84,240 worth of tickets for World Cup matches in South Africa this summer, in order to sell them on to ticket touts for a huge profit. Today, Mr Warner has breakfast with the Prime Minister.

Two realisations have dawned upon me in recent months. Firstly, England will never win the World Cup in my lifetime. The way the game is set up and governed in this country means that we will never produce the numbers of quality, technically adept, players needed to give the national team coach a realistic chance.

Secondly, England will never host the World Cup in my lifetime. The corruption that is rife within FIFA will see to it that the World Cup goes to those who line some very shady pockets in Zurich.

FIFA's motto is "For the Good of the Game", what a load of *'&#!

A message to the 2018 Bid Team: Welcome to my World

The news that the chief executive of our 2018 World Cup bid has described the BBC’s decision to air a Panorama programme about corruption in FIFA on the eve of the decisive vote as ‘unpatrotic’ betrays a staggering arrogance and a total ignorance about media matters.

There are a number of points I would like to make. Firstly, since when does a non-elected official get to decide what is and what isn’t patriotic?

Secondly, if he didn’t know, this is how the media operates in this country. Journalists and broadcasters will decide content and timings. I, as a PR professional, will make suggestions as to stories and timings of stories but they are at liberty to ignore me.

Sometimes what the media does is infuriating and against an organisation’s best interest, but that’s tough. It’s the price of having a free press which is more than what our bid competitor Russia has.

Finally, all this, for me, has uncomfortable echoes of the Bush Administration’s reaction to dissent over the invasion of Iraq. It was a short walk from labeling any questioning of the decision to invade as unpatriotic to the passing of the Patriot Act, torture and Extraordinary Rendition, whereby the CIA, knowing full well that torture was unconstitutional in the USA, flew prisoners to other countries in order to waterboard them.

In short, the Bush Administration encouraged a culture of “anything goes in the name of national security”. I, for one, do not want a culture of “anything goes in the name of winning massive global sporting events, including bribery and backhanders”.

If that is the price of winning I’m not sure it’s worth entering. The BBC has to stand firm.

Just How Public Would You Go?

The BBC has written to me at home. It was a hand written envelope with a personal note inside from a BBC researcher inviting me to take part in a documentary on people’s attitudes to money and how they spend it.

She assured me that the BBC has “ an impressive track record for producing high standard documentaries.”

My first thought was that I might be an ideal participant …professional executive with penny pinching ways that hark back to my student days when “ The Pauper’s Cookbook “ was my bible. Eyebrows might rise at my efforts to grow my own, recycle and my personal clothes allowance is so small most women would gasp in amazement.

Certainly not what you would expect from a PR exec!

But why put myself through this? Do I really want people sitting at home knowing what my money habits are?

Celebrity trivia is so at the forefront of media content today - who would have thought 5 years ago The Sun would have put as the main front page story, as it did last week, that Lily Allen is “preggers”?

We are being lured into a culture of exposing every aspect of our lives ….be it on twitter, facebook or national TV.

From my experience broadcast programmes have largely written the plot before filming starts and the “guinea pig” simply has to fit into the strands of the story.

So while I may make fascinating TV fodder, I’ll give this one a wide berth.

PD and the DG of the BBC

I suspect the Director General (DG) of the BBC was expecting a cosy post-Christmas chat when he agreed to appear on the Today programme guest edited by the crime writer PD James on 31st December.

I didn’t listen to it myself (being laid up in hospital with a broken ankle I only had access to Radio Warrington General which was only marginally more bearable than the quality of food on offer) but I have since read an account kindly provided by the Daily Mail.

Instead of a cosy chat PD launched into a forensic examination of the current state of the BBC. A mere blog is not enough space to cover all her areas of probing (needless to say she was unimpressed with the quality of programming on BBC3, in particular ‘Help me Anthea, I’m Infested’) but there was one area of interrogation which will be of interest to all those in PR.

PD questioned the number of senior communications people the BBC has on its staff and their seemingly overlapping spheres of influence. The current count is that the BBC has four senior executives with responsibly for communications, audience interaction or brand. In fact there is currently a ‘Director of Marketing and Communications and Audiences’ and a ‘Director of Communications’ both in post.

Even more staggering is the size of salaries being paid. The Director of Marketing Communications and Audiences is currently paid £310,000 a year. The Director of Communications nearly £250,000.

The usual excuses were rolled out by the DG, ‘market forces’, fear of losing high quality people to commercial rivals, in line with the private sector etc.

I suspect most PR people reading this, even those in the heady echelons of financial PR in London, will be delighted to hear that they can expect to earn up to £310k at some point in their career. This by the way is exactly the same amount earned last year by the UK Managing Director of Northgate PLC, a FTSE 250, including bonus. Of course the difference is that Phil Moorhouse of Northgate is answerable to his shareholders, has forecasts and budgets to hit. The Director of Marketing Communications and Audiences at the BBC is answerable to er ... well good question!

The DG is of course talking complete tosh and gives the impression he is completely out of touch with reality, which is not good as the Beeb is under pressure as never before.

I have documented recent BBC failings in a previous blog, but you can be sure that David Cameron has not let this one slip past him. Dave is a former Head of Communications for BskyB (you can bet Murdoch didn’t pay him £310k a year) and will be under pressure from his former employer to break up what News Corporation regards as a state-sponsored monopolist. The Beeb cannot afford this sort of public relations disaster, particularly at a time when scrutiny of public sector spending has never been more stark.

However, even in this debacle, you can see still why the BBC is a national treasure which needs preserving, but reforming urgently. PD conducted her examination of the Director General on the BBC Today Programme without fear of censorship or the heavy hand of interference from either shareholders or senior management. In the world of News Corporation this was akin to the The Times conducting an investigation into The Sun. How likely is that?

Right idea, wrong show

I watched Question Time on BBCi over the weekend to see what all the fuss was about (when you have a 12 week old baby the scheduled 10.30 start to watch it live is asking a bit too much).

All my instincts in the lead up to the programme were that the BNP’s participation protected important elements in our basic rights – namely freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Now, I’ve changed my mind.

There was little freedom on show here. Instead we were treated to an hour’s bear baiting which did little to forensically analyse, dissect and reveal BNP policies. Those with enough grey in their hair will remember a debate on the future of the monarchy held by ITV about 15 years ago in front of a live studio audience which descended into farce with invited guests being shouted down and barracked mercilessly. Last week’s Question Time was almost a re-run.

There is another point here. The BBC keeps getting it badly wrong. If it isn’t Question Time it’s a shoddy piece of Ryanair reporting on Panorama which managed to do the almost impossible by getting public opinion behind Michael O’Leary. Or the deliberate scheduling of Strictly Come Dancing against X-Factor. Now I don’t watch either (I’m a Radio 5 Live 6-0-6 man) but I find it difficult to believe that it is the role of a subsidised state broadcaster to deliberately try and reduce the audience figures (and, crucially, advertising revenue) for a commercial broadcaster.

There has been underground debate, mainly confined to the pages of The Guardian, about the future and role of the BBC. If it carries on the way it is, that debate won’t stay underground much longer.