Morning Update: Adidas baits homophobes; Sports Illustrated goes VR; BBC to merge radio and TV; Stephen Fry quits Twitter
To celebrate Valentine’s Day on Sunday, Adidas posted this photo to its Instagram account, with the caption: “The love you take is equal to the love you make.”
The photo shows what appears to me a same-sex female couple in an embrace. The image has amassed more than 51,000 comment since it was posted. Sadly, some of them were homophobic in nature. But Adidas’ social media team was ready with a sassy response:
The Verge: The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue is now in virtual reality
Last year, The New York Times made virtual reality history by shipping a million Google Cardboard headsets to its print magazine subscribers. The decision put VR into the homes of people who knew almost nothing about it, and who certainly wouldn’t have set out to buy Cardboard of their own volition. This week, another venerable institution is getting in on the fun: Sports Illustrated. And in a move that should surprise absolutely no one, the magazine is making its jump to VR in the magazine’s infamous Swimsuit issue.
When the Swimsuit issue comes out today, it will do so alongside an iOS and Androidcompanion app, featuring news, photography, video, and — more unusually — virtual reality clips. Like The New York Times, Sports Illustrated is including Cardboard-compatible headsets with its magazine.
The Telegraph: BBC to axe television and radio divisions as part of radical management overhaul
Lord Hall, the director-general of the BBC, will not replace Danny Cohen, the corporation’s recently departed director of television, and is instead moving ahead with radical plans to abolish the broadcaster’s radio and television divisions.
In what is being billed as the most far-reaching organisational overhaul in the BBC’s 93-year history, Lord Hall will give a speech before Easter in which he will unveil proposals to axe the corporation’s existing channel-based structures, fundamentally reshaping the organisation into content and audience-led divisions.
BBC: Stephen Fry quits Twitter, saying ‘fun is over’ after Bafta spat
Bafta show host Stephen Fry has confirmed he has left Twitter declaring “the fun is over”. He faced criticism online after comparing costume designer Jenny Beavan to a “bag lady” when she picked up her Bafta for Mad Max: Fury Road.
The presenter later insisted Beavan was a “dear friend” and had “got” the joke. Fry said he has not “slammed the door” on Twitter but said the site had become a “stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous”.
Writing on his official website, he said people needed to “grieve” for what Twitter had become, writing: “I like to believe I haven’t slammed the door, much less stalked off in a huff throwing my toys out of the pram as I go or however one should phrase it.
Mumbrella Asia: Government brief demanding ‘unlimited changes’ irks Singapore design community
A Singaporean designer has taken issue with a government brief posted on procurement portal GeBiz that insists that the supplier must be prepared to make unlimited changes that are completed within two days.
Kelley Cheng, a designer with publishing and design consultancy The Press Room, posted on her Facebook page this afternoon: “Multiple Demands for Unlimited Changes for Design Services on Gebiz. As a designer, I Protest, Do you? Please share this post if you are against Unlimited Changes – Be the Change you want to see in the world.” The image she posted from GeBiz is as above:
Digiday: Why Twitter keeps getting cozier with Google to improve its ad reach
It looks like Spike’s upcoming special, Caraoke Showdown, is going to lead to a real showdown between the cable network and the team behind The Late Late Show With James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke.
Spike’s Caraoke Showdown, which the network announced last week, is set in a car and includes a celebrity host, celeb guests and lots of singing along to tunes. In other words, the show sounds a lot like Carpool Karaoke, the popular segment on Corden’s late-night CBS show that has become a viral sensation thanks to videos featuring Adele, One Direction and Justin Bieber. And that’s not sitting too well with The Late Late Show’s executive producers.
IB Times: Here’s Why CBS Is The Future Of Television No One Saw Coming (Except Les Moonves)
You could say it all began at the end of 2005. Media mogul Sumner Redstone, then a sprightly 82-year-old, decided to split up CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc., the two companies he had merged a mere six years before. At the time of the split, Viacom’s stable of youth-aimed networks were the cool kids: Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon were the future.
More important, they were the cool kids with a two-stream business model: a virtual lock on youth-oriented TV advertising and lucrative fees from cable operators. CBS, on other hand, had the oldest audience on TV at 50 years (median) in a market that depended on advertisers that worship the 18-24 demo. The onetime Tiffany Network wasn’t even that anymore: After Dan Rather was ousted in scandal the year before, even the crown jewel of the CBS Evening News was about to lose its lead for good.
CBS was, in short, an anachronism; dead weight; detritus to be sloughed off for dividend investors to allow Viacom to thrive.
AdAge: TV Execs May Be Jumping the Gun in Predicting a Strong 2016 Upfront
If the prophecies made by TV executives on earnings calls this week are to be believed, we are in for the most lucrative upfront marketplace in at least several years.
Heading toward the summertime negotiations when TV networks will look to sell a bulk of their ad inventory for the fall season, the overriding sentiment from some of the biggest broadcast and cable programmers is that a healthy scatter environment will translate into a vibrant upfront market.
But while “scatter” inventory, advertising that’s sold closer to air time, is certainly strong, there’s a debate over whether that strength is driven by pure demand or due to a lack of inventory as a result of ratings shortfalls.
topics
Adele
Adidas
BAFTA
BBC
Comedy Central
Instagram
Justin Bieber
Mad Max
MTV
Mumbrella Asia
Nickelodeon
One Direction
Singapore
social
Sports Illustrated
Stephen Fry
Twitter
Valentine's Day
virtual reality
