ITV's digital channel Men & Motors goes off the air tomorrow. I'm not sure that's really relevant to you CMU readers, but it's the end of an era, Men & Motors being one of the classic cable channels from back in the early days of multi-channel TV, almost a TV version of Loaded.

The channel has been in decline for sometime, possibly because it slowly moved away from its original simple format of cars by day, girls by night. Arguably the launch of Dave in 2007 didn't help, with its mix of Top Gear repeats by day and BBC panel shows by night. Who'd have thought men liked other men being funny as much as girls being suggestive.

Men & Motors, originally part of Granada's digital portfolio, but part of the ITV network since Granada merged with Carlton to create ITVplc, is being canned to make way for an HD ITV channel.

The House Of Lords' Communications Committee earlier this week published a report on the much previously reported plan to move most of the FM radio network over to the DAB digital radio network in 2015, leaving just a handful of local and community stations on the analogue radio platform, which would eventually be turned off.

As previously reported, the BBC and some of the bigger commercial radio firms are basically in support of the relatively brisk move of UK radio to DAB, the 2015 deadline appearing in the always controversial Digital Economy Bill. However, some of the smaller radio groups, including TalkSport owners UTV, say the 2015 deadline is unrealistic.

The Lords report also expressed some concern for the deadline, saying that awareness of the move to DAB among the general public is poor, and as a result people are still buying FM-only radio sets which could become redundant in five years time. This is a problem, of course, because a lot of people keep radio sets a lot longer than other home electronics kit.

The Lords didn’t actually call for the deadline to be changed, but said the government should step up customer education about the digital switchover, and suggested moves be made to ensure all new radio sets can receive FM and DAB (and so called DAB+). They also backed the FM radio scrappage programme first mooted by the government body spearheading the switchover, Digital Radio UK.

Under that scheme, customers would get a discount on their new DAB radio if they handed in an old FM set when they buy it, a move designed to take FM-only radios out of circulation. The scheme would be unpopular with those stations that will be left on FM in 2015, unless all DAB sets also pick up the FM network.

The Lords report concludes: "If the UK is to go ahead with digital switchover, there needs to be the utmost clarity as to what will happen, in order that the consumer and the industry can proceed with confidence".

Hundreds of 6music fans braved the rain and amassed outside the BBC's Broadcasting House on Saturday lunchtime to protest at the much previously reported plans of BBC management to shut the music station down. 

Various presenters and supporters from and of the station spoke, while bands who have enjoyed support from 6 played acoustic mini-sets. Liz Kershaw kicked off the proceedings by telling the amassing crowd that the battle was not lost, and that if enough people lobbied the BBC Trust - who must approve the Corporation's top guard's plans - the station could still be saved.

Gideon Coe thanked the crowd for their support, and encouraged everyone there to ensure they, and everyone they know, made a formal complaint to the aforementioned BBC Trust, because, he said, the more people who lobby the Beeb's regulator the higher the chance of the station being saved.

Tom Robinson said both 6 and the Asian Network were being closed mainly as the result of a "tidying exercise" by BBC management. "BBC chiefs have decided they want five radio brands, with 'extra' digital spin offs", he told the protesters. "Neither 6 nor the Asian Network fit into this plan, and that's why they are being shut". To that end, he said it was important those make submissions to the Trust stress the need for a whole 24/7 channel dedicated to showcasing and championing new and alternative music, otherwise the Trustees might agree to a fudge where a handful of 6 shows get shoved into the graveyard shift on Radio 2.

Away from Team 6, Liberal Lord Tim Clement-Jones gave his formal support to the Save 6 campaign. He said it wasn't for MPs to dictate how the BBC should be run, but it was right for licence fee payers to tell BBC management when they believe they've got it wrong, and that parliamentarians provided another forum through which 6 fans, as licence fee payers, could air their opposition. "You should write to your MPs and tell them how you feel about 6music", he told the crowd. "The good news is, they're going to be particularly sensitive to your opinions in the next couple of months".

Allo Darlin and The Brute Chorus were among those who made musical contributions, while Black Soul Strangers led the crowd in a reworked version of 'Hey Jude' ("na na na na na na na, Save 6" etc). Mirrorkicks frontman Anil Kamalagharan shunned his guitar, climbed on top of his drummer so he could be seen by the whole crowd, and sang two songs a capella. As an outfit supported by both 6 and the Asian Network, he rallied a cheer in support of the other BBC digital station also facing the chop.

All of which led up to the grand finale, when Mr Adam Buxton took to the megaphone and joked "this is the only station in the world that would air a shambles like 'The Adam & Joe Show'; and just when it was going so well, they shut down the whole station, that's obviously the only way to get Adam & Joe off the air!" While admitting that Mark 'Tommo' Thompson and his chums had a difficult job, he said "6 is a totally unique station, providing shows and playing music and showcasing bands that simply no other radio station does, which I thought was exactly what the BBC was meant to do!"

Keen for the Save 6 massive to have a chant, he led the crowd in a call of "What do we want", "Leave us alone", "When do we want it", "For a long time". Happy faces all round, one just hopes they are happy again in May when the BBC Trust reports back on the cutback proposals.

Speaking to Radio Today, one of the 6 fans who organised the protest, Georgina Rodgers, explained why she'd proposed the rally in the first place. She said: "What I wanted to do, when I suggested that we have a protest outside Broadcasting House, is to bring the web campaign on Facebook into the real world. I think it's very easy to say: 'Yes, I'll join this group on Facebook' - but today a couple of thousand people actually turned up to vote with their feet and say: 'We're angry about this... we're not happy about it... we're very passionate about this radio station'".

Video coverage: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iQjnnlQuWw
Protest Gallery: www.forfolkssake.com/news/4088/save-bbc-6-music-protest-gallery

Pictured: Adam Buxton rallies the Save 6 crowd, taken by Edward Drummond.

The Times today announced it would start charging for access to its websites from June. Despite original rumours The Sunday Times would go the subscription route before the main paper, it seems the paywall will be applied to both titles simultaneously.

The announcement follows months of speculation as to when and how the broadsheet would start charging for its online services, after its owner Rupert Murdoch let it be known he hoped to bring to an end the era of free news analysis on the internet. On confirming the development, News International CEO Rebekah Brooks implied the firm's other titles, The Sun and News Of The World, would soon follow suit.

The Times will charge a pound a day for access to its website, though there will be a £2 weekly subscription that will also provide access to other services, and the plan seems to be to sign people up to that rather than the day rate.

The news has been met with some derision on Twitter this morning, though with the whole newspaper industry in a state of turmoil, mainly because Google and their likes have taken the bulk of the growing internet advertising market away from the traditional media owners, some argue that the subscription model is the only way forward for the news media.

Said subscription-model advocates add that as all the news groups follow suit, and as extra multimedia and mobile widgets are added into the subscription price, web-users will probably eventually be persuaded to part with some cash. Especially once the BBC website is cut down to size (something which is going to happen with minimum public outrage as us media types all get distracted with the Save 6 campaign). 

Of course, The Guardian has an interesting role to play in all this. They say they won't go the subscription route. The Guardian is a unique organisation in that it isn't profit driven, and the mission statement of the wider Guardian Media Group is to make cash to subsidise the company's loss-making flagship title.

Providing GMG can make money elsewhere, they will continue to pump out Guardian online content for free, which will give them a huge competitive advantage once The Times, Telegraph, Indy et al park their websites behind paywalls. And unlike the BBC, there is nothing Murdoch and his team of lobbyists can do to stop The Guardian from giving news, comment and analysis away gratis. Interesting times.

After months of negotiations, Evening Standard owner and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev yesterday confirmed he had bought The Independent. He got the struggling British broadsheet for a pound, but will take on the firm's liabilities. Well, some of them. Actually current owners Independent News & Media will contribute over £9 million to Lebedev's new company Independent Print Limited to help pay off some of the paper's debts.

As previously reported, when one of INM's big shareholders tried to force the Irish media firm to shut The Independent down last year the firm's management said it would be more expensive to close the title than keep it open. With that in mind, presumably £9 million is an OK sum of money to pay to have the problem taken off INM's hands.

Lebedev's purchase of The Indy has been such a long-time coming, staff there have already been preparing for the new ownership. That said, it remains to be seen what the new proprietor will do with the paper, which has the smallest circulation of all the British dailies and which many expected would bite the dust this year until the Russian started to negotiate a takeover.

Given what Lebedev did with the Standard, there has been wide speculation that he will make The Indy a free morning title distributed in key cities to commuters, though he reportedly denied that was a plan during a conversation with Gordon Brown recently. Certainly any move to make The Indy a proper free title (actually, they already give away thousands of copies a day) would be a bold move that could potentially transform the UK newspaper market.

Confirming the deal, which should be completed in May, INM CEO Gavin O'Reilly told reporters: "This is a most satisfactory and positive outcome for the titles, their staff and for INM's shareholders. I wish IPL and the staff every success for the future in continuing the development of these important and influential titles".

The Men From The Press, the previously reported online service which planned to offer a "brand new type of music PR" by paying journalists to fill out online feedback forms after listening to unsigned and self-releasing artists who signed up to the website, announced yesterday that it was closing its doors, a matter of weeks after launching, following widespread derision from both the journalism and PR communities.

As previously reported, the journalists who signed up to the scheme, who were seemingly all freelancers, did not commit to give anything they listened to any actual coverage in any of the media they work for (and in many cases would not be able to anyway), but, rather, they provided a direct critique to each paying artist, which might constitute useful feedback in itself and, if positive, could be used in a band's other publicity. That said, the aim obviously was to force participating journalists to expose themselves to the music bands had paid to upload to the website, in the hope some of the hacks would genuinely like some of music, and then become influential champions of those bands.

Though in theory there was nothing ethically wrong with the service - providing paying bands knew they were buying feedback not coverage - because the service charged a per journalist fee, and because the rate card listed the publications each writer worked for (minus their names), and also because the fee was higher the more esteemed the publication, some argued that the implication was that you could, in fact, buy coverage.

Certainly it would have been easy for less media-savvy exposure-hungry new artists to misconstrue what was actually on offer, and little was done to stress that actual coverage was not for sale. The page on the website where artists selected which writers they wanted feedback from was topped with this explanation: "Listed below are the current publications our journalists write for together with their respective submission fees, which are to cover our admin costs and journalist submission fees - there are no other hidden charges! Please note: Most of our journalists write for several publications, which is why some are bundled together as below... the submission fees are for each bundle, so this gives you more value for money".

As a result, many of the publications listed requested that their titles be removed from the site, even if some of their freelance contributors were actually involved in the new service, because they didn't want confused bands to think editorial coverage was for sale. Meanwhile, some of the journalists signed up seemingly withdrew their services, possibly because the publishers and editors of the titles they write for had started to express concerns. Or possibly because they never really understood what the Men From The Press offer was going to be. Some of the service's participating journalists said they were originally approached by someone who simply asked if they would like to be paid to give feedback to new bands, without being told they'd be participating in a new kind of music publicity venture.

A statement posted on the website yesterday by founder Dave Chisholm, and also emailed to signed up artists, read: "The whole point of themenfromthepress.com was to provide PR in a 'brand new way'. So bands, artists and small labels who simply haven't got the funds would be given a chance! I put a hell of a lot of work into this and set TMFTP up for all the right reasons and with all the best intentions to help new bands and artists as I know how tough it is for them in this business... But we have now been shot down in flames!

He continued: "Certain publications and some traditional PR companies (who I will not name) have made it impossible for us to carry on through their constant slanderous remarks and activities which have damaged our reputation to the point where we have lost all heart with the project. And so sadly and with great regret we have now closed! I would like to say a very big thank you to the many bands artists and journalists who have and still support us ... I tried to make a difference but sorry guys... they wont let us..."

Chisholm also said that all subscription and submission fees would be refunded to those artists who had signed up. Though those artists who opted to pay by PayPal were never charged in the first place, because a glitch in the website's programming meant that, although subscription fees were charged, those paying by the online payment system were able to submit their music for review without paying anything at all.

Radio firm Your Media, set up last year, has gone into administration, taking its five stations off the air. Your Media bought Bath FM, Brunel FM, 3TR and the two QuayWest FM outposts after their previous owners, South West Radio, also went into administration last year.

Despite grand plans to expand through the launch of new web-only services, Your Media seemingly struggled to make the former SWR business work, hindered in part by OfCom objections to some of their revamp plans. The stations went off the air rather suddenly yesterday at 5pm, four switching to an emergency music tape, 3TR broadcasting glorious silence. All staff were made redundant and assets removed shortly before the switch off.

According to Radio Today, the owners of the totally independent Star Radio Cheltenham are negotiating to buy Your Media's five licences, though that deal will require OfCom approval

Moves to regulate the lobbying industry are likely to be stepped up following the latest political scandal to rock Westminster. As you will no doubt have seen, the big story in the political world this week is Monday night's 'Dispatches' documentary, which was previewed by reportage in the Sunday Times at the weekend, in which various outgoing MPs expressed their interest in cashing in on their political influence by taking on lobbying work on behalf of a fictitious American company.

Focus has fallen in particular on former Labour ministers Geoff Hoon, Stephen Byers and Patricia Hewitt, and to a lesser extent another Labour MP Margaret Moran, who were all secretly filmed expressing an interest in the non-existent lobbying work. In the interviews Hoon was seen saying he wanted to make "some real money", Moran boasted about her access to a "girls' gang" of ministers who could influence decision making in Westminster, and Byers described himself as "sort of like a cab for hire". The latter was a particularly unfortunate turn of phrase, because it links back to claims made by Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed during the height of the Tories 'sleaze scandals' of the mid-nineties that you could "hire an MP the way you hire a London taxi".

That said, Byers' interview has dominated the headlines less because of the "cab for hire" quote, and more because in it he claimed to have previously influenced government policy in return for a fee, claiming he lobbied current ministers Andrew Adonis and Peter Mandelson on behalf of National Express and Tesco respectively. He seems to have distanced himself from those remarks after the interview, even before he knew he had been talking to an undercover journalist. Meanwhile, since the scandal broke both the ministers and companies name checked by Byers have denied any knowledge of his claims.

As both the political and lobbying community awaited the airing of the Channel 4 programme yesterday, key players in the latter were keen to stress the documentary showed the shady side of the former, rather than presenting their own industry in a bad light. The boss of the public affairs division of communications firm Weber Shandwick, Jon McLeod, told PR Week: "Yet again it is the fumbling attempts of parliamentarians to be lobbyists that have cast a shadow over the professional practice of the industry".

As much previously reported, moves have long been afoot within the political community and the public affairs sector to regulate lobbying in someway, partly in a bid to end any dubious practices, but more to convince the increasingly cynical public that most of the PR industry's work in this domain is completely above board.

Although politicians on all sides have supported such regulation, the favoured route to date has been some kind of voluntary code of conduct set up by the lobbying industry, possibly with a register in which lobbyists declare which politicians they have lobbied on what companies' behalf. Some in the sector actively support such a voluntary code and register, though it does not have the universal backing of the entire industry.

But some believe that internal opposition will now be irrelevant as it looks increasingly likely politicians will force a statutory code on the lobbying community. As Labour went into damage limitation yesterday, with the Parliamentary Labour Party expelling the four shamed MPs despite their protestations they didn't actually break any rules, the party also indicated it would include setting up a statutory lobbying register in its manifesto at the upcoming General Election. David Cameron's previously reported commitments to make the lobbying world more transparent hadn't previously gone that far, but the latest scandal - although focused on Labour ministers - may force him to support a statutory register too.

Confirming he thought the lobbying sector would now face compulsory regulation, McLeod added in his interview with PR Week that statutory regulation of lobbying is now "both right and inevitable", though, also talking to the trade magazine, the MD of Hanover Communications cautioned "backing a statutory register for lobbyists is deliberately missing the point as it alone would do nothing to stop MPs taking outside interests".

No less than 94 MPs have now signed the previously reported Early Day Motion tabled by Labour man Tom Watson calling on the BBC to reverse their plans to shut down 6music and the Asian Network. Though Tory culture man Ed Vaisey, who told CreativeBusiness he digs 6 after the Guardian implied he was pro the station's axing, is yet to add his name to the Motion. He's going to be at the previously mentioned UK Music event at the Houses Of Parliament next Monday, I vote we kick him to the floor and force him listen to Neil Fox on Magic until he gets his pen out. That's the sort of democracy in action I think we, the British public, could really get behind.

Anyway, as previously reported, Watson's EDM reads as follows: "That this House notes with deep concern recent newspaper speculation that the BBC is considering closing its 6music and Asian Network radio stations; believes that both radio stations offer outlets for independent and non-mainstream music; further notes that both 6music and Asian Network reach out to audiences not otherwise well served by the BBC; congratulates 6music and Asian Network for acting as a source of talent for the BBC and other media; recognises that the BBC has a duty to represent and give a platform to minority interests that need a mainstream platform to develop and grow; and calls on the Government to encourage the BBC to continue its support for 6music and Asian Network for many years to come".

Former Capital FM deejay, former commercial radio chart monkey, and one time Xfm presenter, Lucio is to get his own shows over on Absolute, presenting the 80s fest on a Friday evening and the early show on Saturdays. To ensure these slots are vacant, current Absolute presenter Neil Francis will be shot at dawn on Good Friday, allowing Lucio to takeover the 80s show that evening. The Lucio man has been doing fill-in shifts on Absolute since the start of the year.

Talking about new radio appointments, BBC Radio Lancashire's Phil Trow is moving to BBC Radio Derby where he will take over the peak time breakfast show. This is probably of interest to exactly no CreativeBusiness readers, but he's one of my favourite radio presenters, so I wanted to mention it.

Another one from the political world, though one that provides a lesson in digital communications. An effort to seize the digital initiative in the upcoming General Election back-fired on Conservative supporters yesterday after the makers of a political website failed to grasp the risk of allowing Twitter-generated content to automatically appear on your site.
The website is called Cash-Gordon, and aims to embarrass the Labour government over the large donations the Labour Party receives from the union Unite, currently in the headlines for spearheading the unpopular British Airways strike. The website encourages visitors to read a speech by Tory frontbencher Michael Grove, to bug former Labour advisor and now Unite political director Charlie Wheelan via his social media accounts, and to check out what is being said about the campaign on the Twitter network.

Unfortunately the latter was enabled by a widget that showed any Twitter message containing the so called 'hash tag' #cashgordon. Labour supporters and general jokers on Twitter used this fact to tweet anti-Tory or just generally offensive remarks, alongside the required hash tag, knowing their contributions would then appear, albeit for a short time, on the home page of the anti-Labour website.

According to the Guardian, more advanced Twitter users then worked out how to embed images and programmes into their tweets that would add extra unwanted content to the political website, while others worked out how to use the Twitter widget to force a redirect, so that people going to the site would be taken to another, at one time the Labour Party website, at another the Rick Astley video that is so frequently used in online practical jokes these days.

Despite initially insisting a totally unregulated approach to #cashgordon tweets would be maintained, the website's owners later admitted misuse by the Twitterati had forced them to remove that element of the site. As of last night it was back, but with a moderator installed to decide which Tweets go live. So much so, one Tweeter remarked "Aw, #cashgordon tweets are no fun anymore now that the feed's moderated. I'm going to bed. Night all". That tweet made it through moderation though.

The lesson for digital PRs? Probably best not to put an unmoderated hash-tag-based Twitter feed on your home page. Especially if you are involved in anything vaguely political.

The dispute between the media relations and press cuttings industries and the Newspaper Licensing Agency over the latter's efforts to launch a 'links licence' will rumble on for at least a year. Papers published by the UK Copyright Tribunal last week revealed that in a preliminary hearing last month the copyright court rejected the NLA's efforts to have the legal case against the agency dismissed, and then ruled it wouldn't consider the disagreement in full until February 2011.
As previously reported, the NLA argues that agencies who provide corporate clients with lists of relevant newspaper headlines and links to the actual articles than mention their company should have to pay a licence fee, in the same way they would if they provided photocopies of the actual articles. But the PR industry argues that because no copies are made when links are provided, the copyright laws that empower the NLA in the print media and photocopy domain don't apply with digital links.

Cuttings agency Meltwater and the PR Consultants Association are opposing the NLA's efforts to launch the links licence, and took the matter to the Copyright Tribunal, the court that considers disputes specifically relating to copyright issues and royalty payments. The NLA was forced to suspend its link licence operations when Meltwater began its action, and given the time scale of the Tribunal hearing those operations will now have to be on hold for over a year.

In related news, the NLA recently announced a new fee structure regards their traditional newspaper copying licences for smaller PR agencies, those with less than five staff and three or less clients. The new fees will simplify the licence system for said agencies and, the NLA argues, reduce their costs. Though the boss of one affected agency said that while he recognised both the NLA's claims were true, it still wasn't a cost effective licence for his company.

Mervyn Edgecombe, MD of London-based PR agency Mervyn Edgecombe Associates, told Communicte: "The old system was so complex and convoluted that anything that simplifies the process has to be welcome. [But while] £150 [per client] may not sound much, that's £450 for the three main accounts that would warrant this license, and there's not enough value to justify it. When we get the coverage, we just send the office junior out to buy an extra copy of the paper".

So, there has been much chatter in the music journalism community in the last few weeks about a new service being offered to grass roots artists that guarantees to put their music in front of apparently influential music critics. The company can make that guarantee because it pays the journalists in question to listen to their clients' music and to provide a one-to-one critique.

The service competes with those traditional music PR agencies which offer their services to unsigned or self-releasing artists, normally for a few hundred pounds per campaign. The founders of the new service, called The Men From The Press, say their web-based promotional platform is more cost effective than traditional PR, because it ensures exposure to a small number of targeted journalists, whereas the traditional approach involves sending CDs or press releases to a long list of reviewers and editors, none of whom might actually listen to the music they are sent. With TMFTP bands pay a registration fee, and then an additional fee per journalist they wish to make contact with.

The journalists signed up to the scheme, who are seemingly all freelancers, do not commit to give anything they listen to any actual coverage in any of the media they work for, but will provide a direct critique, which might constitute useful feedback and, if positive, can be used in a band's other publicity. Though presumably the real attraction for bands is that it commits signed-up journalists to listen to any music they are sent, meaning that - if any of those journalists turn out to genuinely like an artist's music - an influential fan may be secured.

The page on the new service's website that lists the journalists who can be targeted has been through a number of incarnations. Initially customers of the service could choose which publications they wanted to target, and presumably any freelancers who write for those titles would have been contacted on a signed up artists' behalf. But that page was removed, reportedly after some of the featured publications complained it implied coverage in their titles could be bought, or that journalists participating somehow represented the viewpoint of the titles they may contribute to.

The crucial page is now structured by journalist, listing all the titles each reviewer writes for. The more titles, and the more influential the titles, the more it costs to put your music in front of a signed up hack. At one stage this page actually named participating writers, though currently the identities of participating reviewers are not actually revealed.

While there is nothing ethically wrong with it in principle, providing artists are clear they are buying feedback not coverage, and providing participating journalists are never unduly swayed to give coverage to paying bands, many music publicists and journalists are nervous about the implications of the new service.

It's founder, Dave Chisholm, admits that part of the aim of his service is to try to win his clients new fans in the music journalism community, but told The Guardian that he disagrees with the viewpoint that it is wrong to offer cash-strapped freelance journalists a financial incentive to ensure his bands are exposed to opinion formers. He argues that such financial incentives are no different to traditional PRs offering journalists free perks in a bid to ensure they listen to their clients' music.

But also speaking to The Guardian, one artist manager who previously worked in PR, Tim Vigon, said he still had concerns. He told the paper: "My instinct is that it's wrong on every level ... it feels like payola [paying for coverage], even though there's nothing illegitimate about it and all they're after is feedback".

Meanwhile the founder of one music website, some of whose reviewers were approached by Chisholm's team, was more blatant in his criticism. Drowned In Sound's Sean Adams blogged yesterday: "I sit around listening to mostly not very good unsigned bands for free. I can kinda see where the 'concept' came from, in terms of greasing the wheels to bring certain CDs to the top of the pile and give bands some feedback. Not all ideas are worth running with though, especially when they're so poorly executed, and give the impression [bands will] get a leg up when it generally seems exploitative and EVIL. If you're in a band, don't do this, just do your research of who will like your stuff. People are easy to communicate with".

Such is the hoo haa around the Digital Economy Bill and the BBC's proposed cut backs that many media commentators are only just getting round to reading the report published by parliament's Media Select Committee last week regarding the running of Channel 4, in which the state-owned commercially-funded broadcaster got quite a slating.

MPs had a lot of criticism for C4's former CEO Andy Duncan, which might explain his sudden departure late last year.

The report slagged off the TV firm for failing to fulfil its promise to invest £10 million in programmes for older children, for investing so much in the Project Kangaroo TV-on-demand venture given said project was likely to fall foul of the Competition Commission (which it did), and for covering up just how much was wasted on the broadcaster's doomed efforts to launch a digital radio network (described by C4 bosses as "modest", but running up to £10 million when more heavily scrutinised). C4 management were also insufficiently transparent, the MPs said, when it came to declaring the costs of their digital-only channels.

MPs also questioned the way Channel 4 is regulated, and suggested firstly that a BBC Trust type set up should perhaps be considered for C4 rather than just leaving the regulation to OfCom (despite the BBC Trust being much criticised itself), and secondly that the impact of C4's operations on the commercial market should be given more consideration, again in line with BBC regulation.

German entertainment magazine NEON has issued an apology after it published a fabricated interview with Beyonce Knowles earlier this year. Apparently they didn't initially think it was odd that the singer, who is famously tight-lipped about details of her marriage to Jay-Z, would suddenly admit to having a pre-nuptial agreement, reveal she is keeping her desire to have children secret from her husband, and claim that he's a bit of a misogynist.

In a statement, the magazine said: "We do have serious doubts in the truth of many statements of the interview of Ms Beyonce Knowles published in NEON, issue January 2010The article was written by the freelancer Ingo Mecek. The editors-in-chief have confronted Ingo Mocek with these doubts. Ingo Mocek was not able to verify certain statements, particularly the statements regarding a marriage contract of Ms Knowles. Therefore, we assume that the interview did not take place as claimed by Ingo Mocek".

It continued: "NEON dissociates itself from the content of the interview with Ms Knowles. NEON subscribes to a high level standard of truthful journalism. Since Ingo Mocek has violated these standards severely, NEON has terminated all relationships with him with immediate effect.We sincerely apologize to Ms Knowles and her management for all personal inconvenience that may have arisen due to the publication of this interview".

When BBC boss Mark 'Tommo' Thompson recently announced he was axing his company's most credible music service 6music, he promised that some of the digital station's more interesting programmes would be moved to other BBC stations. We assumed that meant 6 shows would be dropped into graveyard slots on Radio 2, not the untouchable 'Archers' slot on BBC Radio 4. But that very idea was put to the test this week when three minutes of the music station was aired in place of Radio 4's daily soap opera.

Of course, this was more BBC cock-up than BBC strategy, though it can be hard to tell the two apart at times. Yes, a technical error meant that 6music's output crashed over Radio 4's early evening news bulletin and the first part of that night's 'Archers' episode. There was speculation on Twitter that pro-6 campaigners on the inside of the Beeb had taken part in some sort of sabotage, but BBC bosses denied that was so, and it does seem to have been, instead, a timely technical error.

A BBC spokesman said: ''Owing to a technical error, Radio 4 transmission was lost for approximately three minutes this evening shortly after 7pm. We are very sorry to listeners for loss of service. Transmission was interrupted for just under two and a half minutes at 19.01. An announcement was made on-air that 'The Archers' programme can be heard again at 2pm Friday 19 Mar and is available on iPlayer for the next seven days".

You can hear the glorious cock-up on the Radio Fail website.

Commercial radio trade body RadioCentre yesterday announced two new radio industry execs had been appointed to their board, both coming from smaller radio firms. Steve Fountain heads up radio for the Kent Messenger Group, who own seven KMFM stations in the South East, and Malcolm Bluemel runs Planet Rock, the digital rock station once owned by Global Radio but now an independent concern.

The two new board appointments maybe designed to alleviate concerns that Global, the biggest UK radio conglom, has too much dominance over the trade body. Middle-sized radio firms UTV and UKRD both implied Global's excessive influence over RadioCentre policy was behind their decision to quit the trade body.

Confirming the appointments, RadioCentre top dog Andrew Harrison said these words: "I'm delighted to welcome both Malcolm and Steve to the Board - I've no doubt they will offer valuable input on behalf of digital stations and smaller station members respectively to ensure that the voice of all our members is heard at the highest level. The fact that they were nominated by their peers also provides them with a mandate to speak on behalf of these small but vitally important parts of our industry".

Bluemel added: "As we move towards a digital future for radio, it is crucial that digital only stations have a voice - equally, there is a lot of valuable input that we, as digital services can share with the rest of the industry and I'm looking forward to working with the board on all these issues".

The Student Radio Association has spoken out in support of the Digital Economy Bill, but don't worry, that doesn't mean the college radio types are suddenly advocating cutting off file-sharers. They are concentrating on the radio components of the Bill, and the proposals to move most of the radio sector onto the digital audio broadcasting network by 2015.

The SRA had previously expressed reservations about this move, because those student radio stations broadcasting on FM and AM will probably not be in a position to go DAB in five years time. However, it has emerged that the FM network will still operate, for a time at least, after 2015, and with mainstream radio stations shifted onto DAB that will leave more space for community and student stations on the old frequencies.

There were fears that, while FM would remain, it would become a ghost town where it was hard to get listeners because all the big stations would be DAB-only. But new technologies that will enable both DAB and FM stations to appear on one electronic programme guide on the digital radios of the future have alleviated some of those fears.

Anyway, having seemingly consulted digital switchover body Digital Radio UK on what will happen to the FM network post-2015, the SRA now thinks the digital switchover plans in the DEB are good news for student radio, and they are encouraging their members to write to their MPs to support that aspect of the bill.

Radio Today quote SRA chair Tim Dye thus: "We are delighted that Digital Radio UK has embraced the needs and well-being of the student radio sector within its vision for digital radio switchover, and we look forward to working with them in ensuring a thriving analogue spectrum where our member stations can provide an even better service to the UK's student population".

As previously reported, while many of the major players in British radio support the 2015 switchover to DAB - including the BBC and Global Radio - some of the smaller radio firms like UTV and UKRD say such a deadline is unrealistic given slow uptake of DAB to date.

All round radio legend Kenny Everett is to be featured in a new BBC 4 biopic. The programme will follow the late comedian and DJ's early life, starting with his childhood in Merseyside.

It's not clear how much of his professional career, which included stints on the early pirate radio stations and later Radio 1 and Capital Radio, not to mention a popular TV show, will be included in the drama. Along the way, of course, Everett befriended many of the British rock elite of the sixties and seventies. He died in 1995 of an AIDS related illness.

The BBC confirmed the biopic was in development yesterday, and that it would be an in-house production. The screenplay will be written by Tim Whitnall who won acclaim at last year's Edinburgh Fringe with his one man play about the life of Eric Morecambe.