Interview: Roger Mosey, BBC TV News (Evening Standard)

By David Rowan

IT takes acute political skills to survive as a senior BBC executive nowadays, and Roger Mosey, head of television news, is renowned as the ultimate tactical operator. Lying low as his boss, Richard Sambrook, took the flak during Hutton, Mosey emerged only to deliver headline- grabbing speeches championing his department's "upmarket" strengths.

Since then, his supporters have tipped him for every high-level corporation vacancy. Mosey has the impeccable ability to fall under the most flattering of spotlights.

This week, as the new directorgeneral sets out his "public value" manifesto, Mosey wants to show that BBC News has learned the lessons of Hutton. It accepts the editorial safeguards proposed by Ron Neil, a former head of news, so the real story, Mosey insists, is its pursuit of "impartiality, accuracy and independence".

"Things went wrong, systems went wrong, which we are addressing," he says, "but there is no ' crisis' in BBC journalism." Indeed, he would rather talk about the 50th anniversary of television news, a morale-booster which conveniently falls next Monday.

Yet for all Mosey's optimism, the corporation has not entirely exorcised the ghost of Andrew Gilligan. Some news staff are already worrying that the Neil review will stifle challenging reporting. With lawyers brought into the heart of the newsroom, and new powers to make reporters name sources to editors, won't the reforms simply inhibit journalistic enterprise?

Mosey, 46, whose empire includes all the main TV bulletins, Newsnight and News 24, rejects any suggestion that the news will become softer. The decision to bring in lawyers, he insists, "is designed to get things on air rather than stop things getting on air".

The legal team is currently based in another building, so cannot make a split-second judgment when new footage arrives just before airtime. "And when you get a split verdict in a court case, you have a second to decide whether you can run the backgrounders," Mosey continues. "That's exactly where it's useful to see the whites of the lawyer's eyes."

More controversial is a plan to send all news staff for periodic courses at a BBC "college of journalism". Some correspondents have called the idea patronising, and Jeff Randall, the business editor, reportedly complained: "I don't need to go to back to school - I did that 25 years ago."

"The papers can have their fun about Jeremy Paxman sitting on the front row, but it's about training the bulk of our journalists, especially when they are promoted," Mosey retorts. "These are not just BBC problems but are industrywide. Are there consistent training standards? How do you get people to keep up to date on the law?"

Yet excessive caution risks leaving it to others to set the news agenda. Does he still think the BBC should break stories? "Yes, absolutely," he says. There will still be "original, challenging and bold" reporting. So how would he respond to Mark Byford, who as acting director general suggested that the BBC should not be " competing with newspapers or whatever in bringing original exclusives"?

"I think he was saying …" Mosey begins, before evading the question with a non sequitur: "Research, which I'm sure he'd seen, shows that viewers really hate great red blobs on screen saying 'exclusive', as they think the BBC should be above that."

But what of the stories themselves - can he name the BBC's biggest recent scoop? He mentions "the story about the fireworthiness of the Queen Mary 2" - not, perhaps, one to set Fleet Street abuzz.

BESIDES, doesn't Sky News regularly beat News 24 to stories? Not so, Mosey asserts, brandishing yet more research which put the stations roughly level over three days. "Sure, we want to break news, but our channel has to be demonstrably of a higher quality and a higher public purpose than Sky News."

In his speeches, Mosey has carefully positioned himself as a champion of serious, upmarket coverage in contrast to the "poisonous cocktail" of smut chasing ratings elsewhere. The claim is reinforced by his own background as editor of Radio 4's Today programme, PM and The World at One, before he moved to run Five Live.

So how does he respond to Nick Higham, the BBC's media correspondent, who complained last October that "insignificant and trivial" entertainment and sport stories were squeezing out serious stories in the quest for ratings?

"I genuinely didn't recognise that interpretation," he says, blaming "a lag in people's perceptions".

Under a new editor, the Six O'Clock News "has taken a very classic mainstream BBC agenda," he claims, with only occasional entertainment stories. Ratings, he insists, matter less than reflecting that "more serious agenda" - although, he asserts, his strategy has brought both. "When we moved the 10, everyone said the dull and stodgy BBC would get hammered every night by ITN," he said. "But almost all our bulletins are way ahead [of ITN] by having an utterly more serious agenda, not by being daft and dumbing down."

There are less career-enhancing areas on which he refuses to comment, such as the expensive Oryx libel settlement, or the current Foreign Office plan for a BBC Arabic channel to counter al-Jazeera ("outside my area"). Not surprisingly, he rejects claims that BBC News is politically biased, although he does accept that it has misjudged certain stories that challenge journalism's liberal ethos.

"On asylum we were slow to pick up public concern - not just the BBC, but Sky and ITN," he admits. He considered the Telegraph's Beebwatch column mean-spirited at times, but accepts that "it is absolutely right that we are accountable and are challenged".

So where next for Mosey after four years facing those challenges?

It is, he claims, "genuinely tiresome" being tipped for each big job - although he did apply to run BBC2. But what of speculation that he has also been coveting Richard Sambrook's job as director of news? "Richard and I have an extremely close relationship, and he's an absolutely fantastic boss," he says without flinching. Which, in BBC management jargon, is usually a signal to watch one's back.

(Evening Standard, June 30 2004)

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The Times: Tech column - Skype/Adidas 1

By David Rowan

You have bought the iPod, the Blackberry and the plasma screen -but will you also want the computer-powered sneaker? Adidas, known more for its fashion sportswear than its IT prowess, is hoping that gadget fans will soon pay almost £200 to own the latest in hi-tech footwear. Its electronic running shoe, the adidas 1, will not be available until December, but already the company is hyping what it calls "the world's first intelligent shoe". The 1 certainly isn't the first to rely on microchips, but that does not really matter: with its vast marketing push, this trainer could put wearable computing on the map.

We have never really warmed to chip-embedded clothing. Life might be simpler if we wore MP3 players woven into our shirts, or mobiles into our lapels, yet the fashion and electronics industries have never quite hit it off together. But with the sports footwear market worth somewhere over £10 billion, and competition ever more intense, it was inevitable that the microprocessor would emerge as the latest performance enhancer.

Hence the 20-megahertz computer built into the 1, linked to a sensor in its heel that adidas says takes 20,000 readings every second. These are analysed to determine the type of surface you are running on, for which a motor-driven cable system constantly adjusts the shoe's cushioning.

Yes, it is a gimmick that hardcore runners might scoff at. Still, watch out for the buzz among your friends when the first pairs arrive in time for Christmas.

The 1 may well be the most technologically advanced running shoe on the market, and if it succeeds we can expect plenty more computers in our wardrobes. Although if adidas were really smart, wouldn't it invent a boot that helped Beckham to score penalties?

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Skype, the London-based start-up that offers free web-based phone and conference calls, has already given away almost 15 million copies of its software. Now those downloading it (at skype.com) have another reason to celebrate: as well as using it to call other computers, they can also dial any telephone in the world.

Unlike the web-to-web calls that Skype makes simple, these web-to-phone conversations will not be free. But at well under a penny per minute to the United States and much of Europe, the service (called SkypeOut) threatens to kill the business models of more conventional low-cost call providers. You can dial landlines or mobiles, and even the more expensive international call rates compare well with those of standard carriers. You simply register on the website, download the software, and provide your credit-card details to begin.

You will need a broadband connection and some sort of headset, but otherwise you need not be a technical wizard. SkypeOut is currently in test (or "beta") mode, and so does not work as well as it should -but even if you emerge a little frustrated, you will start to understand why the telecoms industry is in turmoil at yet another technology-powered revolution.

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A quick question for the Home Secretary.

If a 24-year-old junior employee can allegedly leak 92 million confidential account details from AOL's "highly secure" database, how will you protect our details in all those vast centralised databases you keep building?


(The Times, June 29 2004)

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Evening Standard: Analysis - The marketing of Wayne Rooney

By David Rowan

THE Lisbon guest list said it all. There were just 20 people at Monday night's party to celebrate Wayne Rooney's two goals against Croatia, and apart from immediate family it was the corporate sponsors who commanded the England wunderkind's attentions. "Pretty well every significant brand wants to talk to him now, from food companies to clothes firms," says one who was present. "If his game carries on like this, he has a real chance of earning at least as much off the pitch as David Beckham."

Amid awed newspaper coverage of "Roomania" and "Wayne's Whirl", the 18-year-old's management team at the Proactive Sports Group has been swamped this week with lucrative offers to sponsor the nation's newest sporting hero. The England and Everton striker already has deals worth about £10 million to promote brands such as Coca-Cola, Ford and Nike, but "Team Rooney" believes this is just the start.

"Provided he stays fit, Wayne has the potential to earn upwards of £100 million over the next decade or so," says a source working with Paul Stretford, the football agent masterminding Rooney's career. "We're emphasising that unlike Beckham, he won't ever be preoccupied with fickle fashions or the latest tattoos. Rooney's the real thing - an amazingly talented street footballer who can appeal to every kid in the world."

Even before Euro 2004, Stretford was talking about striking "substantial and record-breaking" deals for Rooney with four or five longterm blue-chip partners. He currently pulls in a reported £2 million a year in endorsements for products such as the Ford SportsKa - far less than the £15 million credited to Beckham, but a figure Stretford believes is about to jump. He is working with a fulltime team of six on the account at Proactive, part of the Formation Group, dealing with everything from Rooney merchandise to his media training.

Also, Ian Monk, the PR whose celebrity clients have included Carole Caplin and Chris Tarrant, has been brought in to build media interest in Rooney and his girlfriend Colleen McLoughlin.

But for all his footballing talent, they are no Posh 'n' Becks.

Commentators have mocked Rooney's reticence at some of his early press conferences, as well as his sometimes dishevelled appearance, particularly on collecting a BBC sports personality award. Colleen, an aspiring actress whom he met in a neighbouring Croxteth street, has certainly shown no appetite for playing the media, submitting to just one newspaper interview this year. Does this couple really promise the off-the-pitch glamour needed to secure sport's biggest commercial endorsements?

"He'll never be a fashion icon, and they'll never have that Posh 'n' Becks mass media appeal," suggests Phil Smith of First Artist, which manages more than 100 professional footballers. "But Wayne's proved this week he's a big game player who seems to revel on the big stage. If he sticks to endorsements from a few blue-chip companies strongly affiliated to football, he will do very well. The workingclass background will be the making of him." Proactive is looking to capitalise on Rooney's background as a street footballer from Liverpool who would kick around Coke cans if he could not find a ball. It has even trademarked the phrase "Rooney - Street Striker" for merchandise.

It sees part of his commercial attraction as his popularity among children - hence the deals with child-focused brands such as McDonald's and Pringles.

"You can hook them in fairly young and they'll grow up with him," one of those familiar with the Rooney marketing strategy explains.

That approach carries risks, warns Bart Campbell, managing director of Global Sports Management, which represents stars such as Pele. "You're being used to advertise products that are basically unhealthy," Campbell points out, noting that Gary Lineker's image has lately suffered over his endorsement of Walkers crisps.

Campbell's advice is for Rooney to stick with five global brands over the long-term. "Pretty much as they are already planning. What will matter most is the standard of his football. Beckham's appeal is far wider." But others doubt whether Rooney has the charisma to stay the course as a media favourite. "I'm not sure he can carry it off," says the celebrity PR Mark Borkowski.

"Becks has a very ambitious wife who helped project his career. Much will depend on Rooney's handling of incessant media demands, and 18-year-old kids do tend to get drunk and get into trouble. You can quickly go from media hero to zero - look what happened to Ian Botham and George Best. Even Becks has come very close to it lately." Max Clifford, too, identifies Rooney as "an obvious candidate for self-destruction" if his handlers put their own ambitions for him before his long-term needs.

There have already been incidents which threaten to tarnish the corporate sponsors' affection for their new golden boy. A family fight broke out at an 18th birthday party for Colleen which Rooney arranged, prompting days of critical press coverage. Team Rooney denies that such headlines reflected badly on him - "If Wayne has a second cousin who misbehaves, it's not an issue for him, and sponsors know that," a spokesman insists - but they detract from the purity of the footballing image. And image counts a great deal when multi-millionpound endorsements are at stake.

If the hype is to be believed, and Rooney's brand will one day be worth more than the England captain's, how will Team Beckham take it? "I'm sure he could be bigger than David if he chooses to," says Caroline McAteer, the Beckhams' long-term publicist, although she doesn't sound unduly concerned. After all, Rooney will not be the first 18-year-old whose gift has brought him vast commercial expectations. What will really determine his potential as a brand is where his game goes from here.

(Evening Standard, June 23 2004)

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The Times: Tech column - Video product placement/Gmail

By David Rowan

HAVE YOU caught the hot new game capturing video consoles everywhere? It's called Sneaky Product Placement, and not even a laser-blasting superhero will outwit this corporate invasion. With television audiences dwindling as video-game sales boom, games developers are cosily selling out to big-brand advertisers. Cash from in-game branding might help to finance tomorrow's epics -but the rise in commercial clutter is starting to seem a raw deal for consumers.

If you play Sony's mountain-biking game Downhill Domination, your PlayStation comes alive to cycle brands that include Trek and Mongoose. Load Judge Dredd v Judge Death on your Xbox, and ask yourself why Red Bull plays such a prominent narrative role. Brands from Nike to Nokia are aggressively chasing the hard-to-reach demographic that shuns TV for games consoles. For fees that can run into six figures, they can place their products at the heart of the action all portrayed in the most favourable light.

Last week Viacom, the media giant which owns MTV and Paramount, indicated that this trend is about to explode. Richard Bressler, its finance chief, told an advertising conference that Viacom was now targeting an industry worth $10 billion in the US alone. Suddenly it became clear why its chairman, Sumner Redstone, has been investing so heavily in the publisher Midway Games.

It is easy to understand the attractions to corporations of "advergaming", as the phenomenon has become known. Hive Partners, the British agency behind Red Bull's gaming deals, boasts that "situation placement" (its coy euphemism) may achieve more than traditional advertising as "it demands direct interaction and significant suspension of disbelief". It does seem to work: Mitsubishi says that it introduced its Lancer Evo into North America only after the demand created by its appearance in the bestselling game Gran Turismo. Hundreds of the cars are now sold each month.

We have come a long way since 1989, when Philip Morris ordered Sega to remove unauthorised Marlboro billboards from its Super Monaco GP arcade game. Today, the tobacco firm might have to pay millions to reach such a mainstream audience. Yet if gaming is to become just another outlet for the multinationals' marketing strategies, players ought to see some reward for their escapist pastime being compromised in this way. Cheaper games would be a start.

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TERRIFYING statistic of the week: Gartner, the IT analyst, surveyed 5,000 web users and concludes that two million Americans fell victim to bank frauds last year. Typically, it says, their online banking passwords were stolen using "spyware" programs that can record keystrokes. It is hard to know the truth, as banks tend to keep quiet, but if the losses are a fraction of the £1.3 billion suggested, then the password is dead.

+++

IT IS a measure of geek oneupmanship to have been invited by Google to help test its Gmail e-mail service. Inevitably, an online marketplace has emerged to trade this prized commodity...although, this being the web, creative collaboration is going down far better than mere cash. At a site called Gmailswap.com, offers for a Gmail account include "a haiku on a subject of your choice", "your name in my screensaver for two years", a live chicken, and "a picture of me in a wet T-shirt contest".

Yahoo! and Hotmail don't stand a chance.

(The Times, June 22 2004)

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The Times: Rise of the new neurotics - Men and body dysmorphic disorder

A male model feels too ugly to go out, a Porsche owner seeks his second penis extension. David Rowan finds modern life is making men as insecure as women

For a former catwalk model, Mark Adams is strangely insistent that he is ugly. At six foot three (1.90m), well-muscled and with a stylish dress sense, Mark, in his mid-thirties, has no problems finding girlfriends -indeed, he separated only recently from his partner of three years. But even though he is often told how attractive he is, Mark, based in Liverpool, persistently sees a very different truth. So convinced is he that he looks like a "freak" that at one stage he locked himself in his room for almost six months.

"I've been suffering like this since I was 18, not wanting to talk about it for years, as it was unheard of for someone to be too uncomfortable with their appearance to leave the house," he says. "At times I considered ending it all. It's hard to explain it, but I'm just uncomfortable with what I see on me. If you have an off day, you might relate to that - except that for me, it's 24/7. It takes over your life."

The physical self-repulsion did not diminish even after Mark was invited to model clothes, having been spotted by a fashion designer in the Covent Garden cocktail bar where he was working. That led to a three-year career on the catwalk, until his discomfort at being photographed left him unable to continue. "I've had a lot of girlfriends, and people tell me I'm nice, but I see what I see," he sighs wearily. "I know I'm a bit of a contradiction. A lot of people don't believe me. But it's not attention I seek -I just want to get better."

It was only when he read a newspaper article about a man with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) did Mark decide to seek help. The symptoms were all too familiar: BDD, as defined by psychiatrists, gives sufferers a distorted sense of their physical imperfections, so that they exercise or diet or shun mirrors beyond all reason. Many doctors were initially sceptical that the condition existed among men, but diagnosis and treatment programmes have been boosted in the past four years by a bestselling book by clinicians that has caught the media's attention: The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession.

Having undergone psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and psychoanalysis - he is also on an NHS waiting list for cognitive behavioural therapy - Mark has come to understand more about what he calls his illness. Why, for instance, he has been working out obsessively at the gym for the past 11 years, "I suppose that in order to combat how I feel, I need to make up in other ways", and how his family upbringing contributed to his uncontrolled self-hatred.

"My Dad was very negative towards me, sometimes violent. That can set the seed for BDD," says Mark. His occasional lapses into therapy-speak suggest that its jargon provides a protective wall, but he can also be painfully honest. "Dad would mock me, be very critical," he recalls. "You grow up feeling you're not right, somehow inadequate."

Yet he also believes that the relentless media onslaught of "perfect" male images has contributed. "It's like how some women were feeling about Page Three girls 20 years ago," he says. "These media images portray men in ways that, for most of us, are not achievable. They're leading women to want men with six-packs, making that the ideal. The magazine editors ought to point out that Freddie Ljungberg has the time to work at looking like that."

Having learnt more about the condition, and been in touch with the obsessive compulsive disorder support group OCD Action, Mark now believes that BDD is where anorexia was 20 years ago, when it became more widely accepted as an illness. "BDD will become increasingly common over the next few years as men face more of these unrealistic pressures to look better," he says. "Look at all these magazine cover stars who have had plastic surgery. That's what people are aspiring to. And that's only going to grow as these images make us feel more insecure and imperfect."

The authors of The Adonis Complex would tend to agree. One of them, Professor Katharine Phillips - a psychiatrist who runs a body-dysmorphic disorder and body-image programme at Butler Hospital, Rhode Island - is certain that body image concerns have been growing among men in recent years.

"It's probably a result of an actual increase, as well as better diagnosis and greater awareness, that many men have such concerns," she says. "As we emphasise in The Adonis Complex, it has been taboo for men to disclose worries about looks. Historically, such concerns have been considered a 'women's problem', so men suffer in silence."

These anxieties, Phillips believes, are not simply caused by cultural messages - genetic and psychological factors are also at play. "However, there is increasing media emphasis on the male body - in particular, on attaining a body that's unattainable unless you use steroids. There are several studies that have found that socio-cultural influences, including seeing attractive bodies in the media, tend to make men feel worse about their own bodies."

Although research is still at an early stage, The Adonis Complex - which Phillips co-wrote with Harrison Pope and Roberto Olivardia - cites a 1997 American study suggesting that 43 per cent of men were dissatisfied with their appearance, almost three times as many as 25 years earlier. It also identifies a sharp rise in "muscle dysmorphia", or "bigorexia", in which men exercise obsessively in the mistaken view that their body is too puny. The number of men seeking clinical treatment - in other words, with severe BDD - is now, the book claims, on a par with the number of women. It is, the authors conclude, an "underrecognised yet relatively common psychiatric disorder", a high proportion of whose sufferers attempt suicide. Their critics suggest that Phillips and her co-authors have a vested interest in talking up a condition in which they are the "experts" but whose "rise" is backed by few statistics.

So what of Britain: is BDD really on the increase among men? "No one knows," says David Veale, a consultant psychiatrist who runs one of the country's leading treatment clinics at the Priory Hospital, in North London. "There are lots of opinions, but no one's done any comparative surveys from year to year."

Dr Veale has certainly seen no rise in the number of men he treats (making up almost half of his caseload). But then, he points out, he treats only the most severe cases, men whose body preoccupation has prevented them from living functional lives. "As for those at the milder end of the spectrum, I'm sure these are much more culturally determined," he reflects. "I can certainly believe there has been some growth in these aspects of our culture."

Only 5 per cent of the 25,000 calls each year to the Eating Disorders Association helpline are from men -but as Steve Bloomfield, of the EDA, says, the proportion is growing. Men are far less willing than women to admit to anorexia or binge-eating - but by the time they are seriously enough affected to need clinical treatment, the proportion of men affected rises to around 10 per cent. Male bulimia, in particular, is on the rise -often kicking in when men first enter the job market after university and face new pressures to "look right" for their competitive careers. "These pressures leave them seeking relief, which they may find in binge-eating, especially if they've already tried to control their weight," Bloomfield explains. "With that can come constant visits to the gym. It can be easy to get locked into that obsessivecompulsive cycle."

The problem, he says, is that male eating disorders are still a "hidden" condition. "Men who go to the GP feeling down might appear physically fit and well-muscled because of all the exercise. It might take a long time before they stop burning fat and start burning muscle and looking anorexic." Gay men, in particular, are vulnerable, with similar levels of anorexia to heterosexual women.

There is some debate about the EDA's claimed rise in male eating disorders. "Show me the evidence," says Deanne Jade, the principal of the National Centre for Eating Disorders, who rejects any suggestion that men will ever be as vulnerable as women to the social pressures that may lead to such illnesses. In the past two decades, she says, the proportion of heterosexual men seeking treatment has remained at 8 per cent.

"If you ask a class of adolescent boys what they least like about themselves, they talk about their character. Ask 15-year-old girls and they talk about their bodies. This difference will always transcend whatever's going on in the culture," Jade says.

Nonetheless, Bloomfield says that the gender gap is closing. "In the past ten years, we have seen a dramatic rise in male magazines, many centred on lifestyle and image, and these images are influencing how men think," he says. "I'm not saying that a man will pick up a magazine and simply develop an eating disorder, but if you are seeing all these pictures of six-pack men, and you've had a relationship breakup, you can think: 'If only I looked like him.' And that can start the whole process."

For a man looking to enhance his physical appearance, there have never been greater consumer opportunities. Male grooming represents an increasingly healthy sector for the cosmetics industry: the research company Mintel estimates that British men spent £827 million last year on grooming products, a market growing steadily year on year, with the biggest rises in "prestige" fragrances and toiletries.

Male-only spas are also booming: the Refinery, an upmarket "one-stop grooming and spa experience" with two branches in London, has seen its client list rise from 1,500 to 2,000 in a year, and is about to open a third branch. Alongside shaves and haircuts, its customers are now asking for more "feminine" treatments such as enzymatic mud wraps and pedicures.

"There were 150 full back and shoulder waxes this February, compared with 92 last year," notes Louise McIntosh, the general manager. "And facials are now our second-most popular treatment." Although perhaps 30 per cent of her clients are gay men, what McIntosh finds surprising is the growing popularity of treatments among "traditional businessmen from 30 to 50 who have been dying to do this for years. We're talking about the feminisation of the British male -it used to be macho not to groom yourself, but that's changed with the rise in magazines and role models such as David Beckham."

For men who can afford it, the market also offers ever more opportunities for surgical enhancement - often advertised in the very magazines blamed for boosting male anxieties. Maurizio Viel, a Harley Street surgeon who, with his twin brother Roberto, runs the London Centre for Aesthetic Surgery, has extended more than 1,000 penises in the past 14 years. The men often have no physical need for this, he admits, but for some £4,000 he is happy to make them feel better about themselves.

Viel, 44, also sells his male clients a series of fat injections into their face for £2,000, or course of Botox for £350. "But penoplasty is very popular," he says, using the clinical term for the loosening of the ligament that lets the flaccid (but not erect) member hang a little lower. "It's about how a man sees himself," Viel says, denying that businesses such as his contribute to these anxieties. "They may have a normal-sized penis according to the textbook but, if it's not right for them, and if I can do something with minimal risk to increase their size, then I'll do it."

His customer list, too, is growing, as men become more aware of how they look. "Men want perfection," he says.

Yet it is a quest that, in some cases, only enhances male dissatisfaction. When Viel offers to introduce The Times to a former patient, he presumably expects a glowing testimonial. In fact, after "successful" extension surgery, plus about 20 fat injections to add penile girth, the organ's 54-year-old owner sounds distinctly dissatisfied. The West Midlands man - let's call him Peter - says: "I'd like to say the £5,000 was money well spent, but I probably could have been happier," he says. "I don't consider a flaccid length of five inches as particularly long, and the erect length hasn't changed," he says. "I've seen images on the web from America that suggest it could be more."

Couldn't Peter have simply bought a sports car if he wanted to boost his confidence? "I've already got one - a Porsche - but I rarely use it," he replies. But, in principle, he believes there is nothing wrong in men spending money on their bodies. "If you can pay to get something done that makes you feel better, then why not?" he asks. "Women have been doing so for years."

[PANEL]
THE BEST A MAN CAN GET?

Are men really queuing up for cosmetic surgery?

* According to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), which represents around 160 practitioners, there has been little change in recent years. "It's a misconception that men are getting more plastic surgery," says the BAAPS spokeswoman Tingy Simoes. "At around 8 per cent of total surgical procedures, the proportion hasn't changed. Men are just more open about it."

* The most common male operations - apart from non-surgical treatments such as Botox - are, in order of popularity, otoplasty (pinning back the ears), rhinoplasty (nose surgery), blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery), face and neck lifts, followed by liposuction.

* Last year, BAAPS members reported 174 nose jobs among men, compared with 1,023 for women. There were 69 men seeking major liposuction, compared with 754 women; and just 15 men paying for a brow lift, as against 281 women.

* "I have a steady 10 per cent male/female ratio," says Brent Tanner, a Kent based plastic surgeon, whose male clients are mainly asking for liposuction to trim their loins or beer guts. "Men who come to my practice for chemical peels usually come after their wives have had surgery."

(The Times, June 19, 2004)

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Interview: Janice Hadlow, BBC4 (Evening Standard)

By David Rowan

IT IS customary for new channel controllers to celebrate winning "the best job in television". But Janice Hadlow, the new boss at BBC4, genuinely seems to believe it.

Hadlow, the quietly thoughtful head of Channel 4's specialist factual department, was clearly uneasy being thrust into the limelight at yesterday's press conference announcing her appointment. But afterwards, away from the crowd, she can barely contain her glee at joining the two-year-old digital channel known as much for its highbrow programming as its sometimes minuscule ratings.

"I do honestly think I've got the dream job," she says. BBC4, she adds, is less a television channel than "a forcing house for creativity, a place where the most innovative and exciting things can happen".

And it will be her privilege to bring to the channel "authoritative new faces, new names, new ideas".

Hadlow, a 46-year-old mother-oftwo, is queen of television history.

She gave Niall Ferguson his break, paid David Starkey a reported £75,000 an hour, and commissioned Simon Schama to front BBC2's A History of Britain. But with a strong arts background too, the BBC is counting on her to boost the channel's reputation for serious publicservice broadcasting in the run-up to charter renewal. To start with, she says, expect a few ambitious new landmark series "that deliver on authority and reach".

BBC4 could certainly do with greater reach. Its audience share grew by half last year, but that represented a rise from just 0.22 per cent to 0.33 per cent. And although The Alan Clark Diaries brought in almost a million viewers in January, the ratings for some other programmes barely hit five figures.

Will this limited audience frustrate her? "I don't think so at all," Hadlow responds swiftly. "The way we measure viewers' response shouldn't be just about numbers.

Sometimes it's about the way people watch. You do know that the viewers you have on BBC4 are so committed." Well, the BBC seems to think that numbers matter. "They matter in other parts of the BBC portfolio, such as 1 and 2, but there are some territories in the corporation where they're not what count first and foremost. Look, nobody in television wants to feel they're not attracting the maximum number of people they can. But you can do that within a different framework if the gene pool for your sort of programme is different. It's about maximising pleasure, impact and satisfaction."

This reasoning sounds a rather neat way for Hadlow to pre-empt the inevitable "Is anyone watching?" headlines. But she insists that BBC4's remit is to "do something different". Her choice is not, she says, between ratings and public service. "Many programmes manage to achieve both. It is quite possible to have public-service values in shows which nonetheless attract huge audiences." Another question is whether Hadlow, who commutes from Oxford, has the budget she needs. Last year, BBC4 spent £41 million, whereas BBC2 went through £367 million.

John Hurt, star of The Alan Clark Diaries, spoke out last December against the "ludicrous" cost-cutting that a non-digital channel's production would have been spared. "He did say that," Hadlow says carefully, "but as a viewer I saw no evidence. I don't personally think it would have gained from having had four or five times the budget." The big-bucks mentality can inhibit creativity, she suggests rather conveniently - "narrowing the opportunities that we give to our audiences because we self-censor".

BESIDES, she does not see her remit as to make the next Pompeii. "Our task is to cast our net as widely as we can among people who have something to say. That need not cost the Earth." Good news, then, for prospective media dons: Hadlow continues to believe that academics "touched by charisma" are an underused televisual resource. "I don't just mean historians, but writers with stimulating things to say about the arts, ideas, science, literature. Think of people like Michael Ignatieff, with whom I worked closely when on The Late Show, and who has gone on to become a major figure in American cultural life." Hadlow says that Schama, Starkey and Ferguson have "changed the way we think about history".

Critics argue that the result is to turn a serious-discipline on a presenter's ego, but Hadlow is unmoved. "I've made programmes about the Georgian underworld, the Plague in 17th-century Britain," she says. "Nor is it true that television's only interested in 'Nazis and Egyptians'." The boom in historical fiction convinces her the genre will remain popular.

She is something of the history woman herself. After attending the local comprehensive in Swanley, north Kent, she took a first in history at the University of London and began studying for a PhD on 19thcentury politics. "I thought I would write the great riposte to EP Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class," she recalls, mocking her own naive ambition. "I was just curious about why there had never been a revolution here, so I looked at how strong conservatism was in the years after the French Revolution."

She abandoned the project after three years, but not before reading "a fantastic book which appeared absolutely to reinforce what I thought, but for the first time put a human face on the French suffering". The book was Citizens, by Simon Schama, and as Hadlow puts it: "It changed my life. I thought, hmm, I'd like to meet this guy." That took another decade. She took a job in the House of Commons research department for six years, serving as "a hand-cranked internet" to give MPs instant facts.

The job boosted her confidence "in a way that attending an über-public school might have done for other people. When I started, I was just a very quiet north-Kent girl who didn't say boo to a goose." She won a place as a BBC radio trainee and worked on Woman's Hour, as Victor Lewis-Smith's researcher "booking dwarf-throwers" for Midweek, and on BBC2's The Late Show, where she rose to become editor. As joint head of the BBC's history department from 1995, she commissioned Reputations and Schama's A History of Britain.

Four years later she joined Channel 4, where at one stage she was responsible concurrently for science, religion, arts, performance, history and education.

HADLOW was in the running for the BBC2 controller ' s job before Roly Keating, her predecessor at BBC4, moved in last month. Is her new job simply her consolation prize? "Absolutely not," she says. "I've already got a big job. And while I can occasionally imagine a situation when the controller of BBC4 might look wistfully at BBC2's programmes or its impact, the controller of 2 will look at the freedom, creativity and excitement offered by 4 with equal wistfulness." She knows Keating well, she points out, which will enhance the channels' relationship.

Still, a large minority cannot watch the BBC's digital channels.

What of those - from Lord Bragg to Sir Jonathan Miller - who argue that BBC4 merely allows the corporation to "ghettoise" serious programming in its quest for ratings? "That's just not borne out by the evidence," Hadlow replies, sounding the corporation woman already. "The idea that you've seen a diminution of high-end programmes on the BBC is not true." Besides, she adds, there are always new ways to express " seriousness". "And BBC4 is just one more creative voice."

(Evening Standard, June 16 2004)

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The Times: Tech column - Corporate weblogs/iTunes sharing/ISP standards

By David Rowan

NO WONDER STELIOS is considering the future of his web cafes. Broadband home internet is about to boom as a new price war makes today's expensive luxury a mainstream commodity. The impact will be felt on industries ranging from TV (which will lose viewers) to traditional phone companies (whose profits will be hit by internet-based voice calls). Meanwhile, the wild land-grab among internet service providers is leaving consumers in dire need of protection. Hundreds of ISPs now offer thousands of differently priced packages, and not all of today's "bargains" are what they seem.

Many new under-£20 deals have a catch - in usage or speed limitations - and some set-up fees are simply greedy.

So here's a plea for the telecoms regulator, Ofcom: why not launch an easy-to use, authoritative but judgmental website that holds every ISP to account? Private sites such as adslguide.org.uk will show you how it's done.

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IF YOU WANT to judge how much taste a celebrity has, flick through their CD collection. More realistically, nose around their personal iPod track listings.

One of the most enlightening features of Apple's iTunes Music Store is a facility for perusing celebrity playlists -enlightening not because it helps to guide your own choices but for what it reveals about a star's inner lack of cool.

Though it is no surprise, for instance, that Barry Manilow is listening to Pavarotti and that Burt Bacharach taps along to Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart, fans of Bebel Gilberto might wonder why she is still listening to You Are the Sunshine of My Life, and why the rap impresario Damon Dash is stuck on the 1981 Hall & Oates hit I Can't Go for That. But it is Beyonce's playlist, centred mainly on Beyonce and her sister Solange, that is most revealing. No wonder the webzine Slate calls the celeb playlist "a unique form of public humiliation".

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MATTEL USES a weblog to promote Barbie among young girls; Dell's imparts mind-numbingly detailed technical data regarding its Linux "enterprise solutions".

The regularly updated weblog, once dismissed as a depository of teenage ramblings, is emerging as a cheap, effective way for companies to promote their services. If your business does not yet blog, you should consider the facility's advantages.

As Bill Gates explained at his annual CEO summit last month, the weblog is a remarkably effective means of talking to customers and partners alike.

You do not have to decide who should receive your latest messages, as you must with e-mail; nor do you have to wait for surfers to chance upon your lumbering static website. Microsoft even gives away the occasional insider tip on its own Channel 9 weblog (channel9.msdn.com). It might not be the world's most riveting news source (with entries such as "How the Longhorn graphics team works with the Usability team"), but Channel 9 at least gives the company's take on the day's corporate news. That's probably why Google, too, has recently started to blog (at google.com/googleblog) -where, because it promote its Blogger weblogging software, it solicits technical feedback that could save the company time and money.

A word of warning, though: make sure that your corporate blog is rigorously pre- edited. Once exposed, your trade secrets -or embarrassing mistakes -will be preserved online for ever.

(The Times, June 15 2004)

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Interview: Peter Salmon, BBC Sports chief (Evening Standard)

By David Rowan

BBC sports chief Peter Salmon is gambling a fortune on Euro 2004 and the Olympics. And the stakes could not be higher FORGET the on-pitch clashes: the real action in Euro 2004 will be the battle for your remote control. When Portugal and Greece meet in Porto on Saturday, the BBC and ITV will go head-to-head in a ratings war costing each side tens of millions of pounds in rights. Yet while ITV hopes to recoup its investment in lucrative advertising revenue, for the BBC there is far more at stake.

According to Peter Salmon, its head of sport, a good result for the corporation could secure charter renewal.

The BBC's intensive "Summer of Sport", which the tournament kicks off in earnest, is the culmination of years of intensive negotiations for key broadcast rights. It is, says Salmon, an "enormous, if fairly frightening" commitment, taking in not only Euro 2004 and the Olympics but showcase events such as Wimbledon and the golf Open.

But even though he admits this will be "a very expensive year" for the sports division - claiming almost a tenth of the £3 billion licence-fee income for rights and production costs - Salmon insists that such spending lies at the heart of the corporation's public-service obligations.

"I think sport does win charter renewal," he explains at an outside table near his office at Television Centre. A few years ago, when the BBC lost the rights to events such as Formula 1 and Premier League highlights, research showed that approval for the BBC and its charter plummeted, he points out.

"Internally, we felt that losing sport, with men in particular beginning to drift to Sky, was one reason why the public had fallen out of love with the BBC. But recently a huge Ofcom survey said that sport is now second to news in what people want from public-service broadcasters.

That is what is so pivotal about this summer of sport - it falls just before the BBC goes into battle to make the case for its charter, and hopefully we can prove the case for the licence fee." BUT what of the rights Salmon himself has allowed to fall - not to mention his star presenter, Des Lynam, now with ITV? He may have regained the Derby, Premier League highlights and rugby's Six Nations since he took over sport four years ago, but he was widely criticised in February for letting ITV grab the Boat Race after 50 years.

"It's disappointing," he admits now. "I'd have liked to think that the Boat Race would have consulted us more and that a 50-year relationship would have mattered. It taught me that loyalty in the sports world is probably dead." Sky, too, has forced up the price of sporting rights. But for all the extra costs, Salmon insists that the competition has been good for the licence-payer.

"Sky came in and gave us a kick up the arse, ITV nips in and out to grab things and pinch a bit of talent, and we all rub off against each other," he says. "The result is there are more cameras on football grounds now, more analysis tools.

We needed the wakeup call." His short-term priority now is beating ITV. Although both broadcasters jointly acquired the Euro 2004 rights, and agreed to divide up the matches, the behind-the-scenes horse trading suggests that old rivalries are far from resolved. ITV Sport, for instance, will show England's games against France and Sweden, which a spokesman suggests the BBC fought hard for; the BBC, meanwhile, claims to have the more "climactic" England vs Croatia match, and exclusive coverage of games in later rounds.

"It's been a chess game," Salmon admits. "The BBC's gamble is that England will get through at least to the quarterfinals, because we will have that quarter final live and exclusive. If they don't, then I'm sunk." Neither side doubts that the BBC, as is traditional, will pull in the higher ratings, boosted this year by internet streaming. But ITV claims to have the edge in the commentary box. According to a spokesman, it has assembled "probably the most experienced team ever", with three former England managers (Bobby Robson, Terry Venables and Graham Taylor), as well as Gareth Southgate, who would have been in the England squad had he been fit.

Salmon's response is that the commercials give ITV "a lot less time for editorial, which has probably not played to Des's strengths" - a barbed reference to Des Lynam's reported frustration at feeling underused by ITV where he has to share the limelight with Gabby Logan. He points out that Lynam's departure provided a "wonderful moment" for BBC talent such as Gary Lineker to shine.

SALMON is optimistic that Athens will be ready in time for the Olympics - "but it will be nervewracking" - and thinks that London is looking an increasingly strong contender to host the 2012 games. "I'd say it's 50:50 with Paris," he says. "We're catching up on the bend." The son of a Burnley mill worker and window cleaner, Salmon has not lost his northern accent. He studied at Warwick before becoming a government press officer - but rose quickly through the BBC after winning a graduate trainee place in 1981. He started on programmes such as Crimewatch, and with interludes at Granada and Channel 4, became controller of BBC One in 1997.

His career has not been marked by the best of press. As Channel 4's head of factual, he took some of the tabloid barbs aimed at his boss, "pornographer-in-chief" Michael Grade; there was also gleeful coverage four years ago when he left his long-term partner Penny and their three sons for the actress Sarah Lancashire (they married in 2001).

He was vilified at BBC One for everything from its ratings decline to his refusal to broadcast the Queen Mother's Birthday Pageant.

The headline writers have also paid more attention to his dropped goals at sport than his victories.

"You can't win," he says. "You live with that as part of being a public organisation. But I don't feel aggrieved by the coverage - some of which, don't forget, is by newspapers linked to rival broadcasting organisations." In fact, he believes he has regained respect for his department. "We've clawed our way back to being serious sports players, and now have the best sports rights portfolio in modern times. It will never be better than it is this year." So what next for him? He recently lost his mentor, Greg Dyke, who saw him as a "brilliant leader" best suited to becoming the next director-general. That, he replies, was "just a bit of mischief ... Greg's wicked sense of humour".

Nonetheless, won't his working relationship with Mark Thompson be strained - particularly as, when director of television, Thompson removed Salmon from BBC One? "I don't think so," he replies carefully.

"I've worked with Mark, he was my colleague when I was at One, and he was brilliant at helping sort out my move to sport. We got a terrific candidate." But what of the speculation that he is hoping for Thompson's old job at Channel 4? Salmon deflects the question. "Somebody said to me they'd heard I was running for Tim Lamb's job [at the England and Wales Cricket Board]. There are always rumours when there are vacancies, aren't there?" But is he interested? "It's not on my radar ...

Honestly, I'm just concentrating on this great summer." Not a denial, then.

"Look, this job is the most wonderful hobby I've ever had," he says. "It's just the most fun you can have if you're a man and have a passion for sport."

(Evening Standard, June 9 2004)

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Interview: Denys Blakeway, TV producer (Evening Standard)

By David Rowan

FORGET all that nonsense about dumbed down TV: this, apparently, is the golden age of serious programming. The summer schedules might be packed with reality shows and cheap makeover formats, but the man behind The Major Years and Niall Ferguson's Empire insists that highbrow has never had it so good.

"I don't go along with the view that factual television has been dumbing down and is going to the dogs," says Denys Blakeway, the acclaimed documentary maker who last week sold his production company to Bob Geldof 's Ten Alps group.

"Quite the reverse, in fact. The quality of factual television is now probably higher than ever. You just need to watch documentaries made 10 years ago to see the massive leap forward in quality." This robust endorsement of his company's prospects might make you wonder why Blakeway, 48, ceded control after a decade for just £400,000, to include £250,000 of its assets, plus a limited profitshare if its programmes do well.

Not bad for a profitable 20-person business that turns over £2.2 million. But Blakeway Productions faced a dilemma being mirrored across the independent sector, where power is shifting relentlessly towards the big players. With new Ofcom guidelines giving "indies" more control over their programme rights, broadcasters are less willing to pay a documentary's full up-front costs. And that, for a niche production house like Blakeway, means endless rights negotiations before the first scene can be shot.

"What is really awful, and the reason I've sold the company, is the business of the thing," says Blakeway, in his assertively firm if occasionally self-deprecating tone.

"I've loathed being a businessman, hated every single minute of it, and the financial side has been absolute purgatory. That's why I'm absolutely thrilled to be bought by a company that can take that burden from me. They came along like a white knight, and the great thing is we're keeping our brand and continuing as we were to make our programmes."

But in an industry where an indy such as Hat Trick can sell a minority stake for £23 million, hadn't his mistake been simply to underprice himself? "All I've wanted to do is make good programmes, not become immensely rich," he says. "Otherwise I'd have run Blakeway far better and not as quite such an idiosyncratic company."

BOB Geldof 's commercial gamble is that today's appetite for reality television is on the wane. "Times are changing fast in the British TV industry, particularly at the BBC, and we believe there is a shift from the lifestyle TV which dominated the past five years back to higher quality factual material," Geldof explained when the deal was announced. "People want to see reality on TV, rather than yet more reality TV."

Blakeway, who made his name with landmark series such as Thatcher: The Downing Street Years, agrees that broadcasters are turning more serious, particularly the BBC, which is seeking the renewal of its charter. "Television-goes in great waves of fashion-and the reality wave will probably-soon break," he says. "But what Channel 4 has done so brilliantly is to find room, beyond Big Brother and Wife Swap, for us to make Empire with Niall Ferguson and his next series about 20th century conflict. Look, we've just made a programme for them about the Resurrection, in which the Bishop of Durham sought to prove that it actually took place. It's extraordinary to have a channel with that and Big Brother. And long may it last."

What is changing, however, is the financial viability of the small indies. A company desperate for a commission will accept onerous terms - "like the fruit suppliers to the supermarkets", with ever smaller margins. "You need access to capital, help with distribution, the business acumen to negotiate and exploit rights. You have to find your own capital and risk it on projects rather than getting fully funded commissions. It's all very well, but I came into this business to make programmes." Blakeway's history programmes, for instance, might be commissioned at between £120,000 to £180,000 for a 50-minute slot.

"That sounds like a lot of money," he explains, "but the real cost of making a high-quality, all-bellsandwhistles programme, with a presenter and archive film, is £220,000 to £250,000. Increasingly, you're having to find the difference yourself. Plus, things are more competitive than ever. If you have an idea, you can be certain that many other people will be developing the same idea and will probably have suggested it to a broadcaster before you." Put like that, independent production sounds a gruelling existence, reliant to an absurd degree on reputation and personal contacts.

"It's not like you're a firm selling widgets, which can sell its goodwill or customer base," explains Hamish Mykura, Channel 4's commissioning editor for history and a former Blakeway Productions director. "It's one or two clever, talented creative individuals, without whom you're left with a couple of computers and desks."

MYKURA thinks selling out is a good move for Blakeway, but is not convinced by his former colleague's professions of financial amateurism. "Actually, Denys is rather a shrewd businessman." Blakeway lives near Newbury with his wife, who works in children's publishing, and three daughters, aged 15, 12 and eight.

After university he had a stint on the New Statesman before joining the BBC as a trainee in 1980. He worked mainly in documentaries and current affairs, and a passion for history was sparked when he discovered archive footage while making a Nationwide series on Pacific nuclear tests in the 1950s.

He left in 1990 to make a series about the Falklands war, went on to work with Thatcher and John Major, and more recently has ridden the history boom which began with Simon Schama.

His own personal high point was profiling George VI for BBC2's Reputations - although the Thatcher series gained him most attention. "She was very easy to deal with, never once voiced concern about how she might be attacked by former colleagues, and never wanted any editorial control," he recalls. "John Major was a bit more sensitive - he found criticism very hard to deal with, and TV was purgatory for him. I have a lot of sympathy." As Blakeway prepares to focus on the programmes rather than the bills, he is in no doubt that the current wave of consolidation heralds the end of the small programme maker.

"The big independents want to grow and become real businesses, but the inevitable result will be to squeeze out the one-man bands, the niche operators toiling away in their attics to produce high quality television for the love of making the programmes. I wouldn't advise anybody to set up an independent company on their own now," he says. "I certainly wouldn't do it if I was starting again."

(Evening Standard, June 2 2004)

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