Lilysmedia's Blog

As I mentioned earlier on my blog, we had to do a contractual and legal assignment and part of that was based on the Stig however there was another part about Miriam O’Reilly and how she was dropped from the BBC programme Countryfile when it got scheduled for a different time.

She took it to court to do with ageism and sexism and she won the tribunal. We had to look into the age range of the presenters on the BBC and I found that the males were always older than the females and sometimes the age gap was quite big however they always had quite young presenters.

On the BBC they have quite a wide age gap between their male and female presenters. They have always hired older males than the females and there is nearly always quite a big age gap between the males and females. According to the BBC website in 1950 the female presenters’ average age was thirty two years and seven months where as the male presenters average age was forty six years and nine months. This is quite a big age gap and since then some of the age gaps have also been quite big however a few have been quite small. For example in 1980 the female presenters average age was forty two years and one month where as the male presenters average age was forty four years and one month, this is one of the few small age gaps but generally the males are quite a lot older than the females. They don’t seem to hire presenters over the age of fifty and this could be due to ageism.

Using some Radio Times listings some researchers looked at over 800 performers and presenters from 1950 to 2000 and 2010. They found that the average age for on-screen women varied between 32 and 42 where as the men varied from 38 to 47. 

It seems that they want to have presenters that aren’t really near the age of 50. They take off presenters over a certain age and replace them with younger ones. This isn’t fair as the slightly older presenters are still capable of doing their job well; their age shouldn’t affect their career and be the deciding factor of whether or not they keep their job.

For one of our many assignments we had to carry out research about research and the different types that are used within the media industry and why they are so important.

Research is quite an important thing in the creative media industries as they use it to produce new programmes and films or just to improve the ones that already exist. There is a lot that they have to do for their research. They have to research into their target audience that they are aiming the new programme at, do market research to see if there is a gap in the market for a new programme like this and also production research which is about how they want to produce their new programme. There will usually be about one or two researchers for any production and they are the ones that have the job of doing all the research for the production. They have to research into things like information like any facts or statistics that they want to use and also opinions of others, people like members of the public, celebrities or experts in a certain area, contestants and also audiences, any props that they wish to use to create the final production for example if they give out prizes they need to have them ready, any extra footage they may want to show like any special events that had been filmed previously to the show being broadcast on television, if they wish to use any still images such as photographs or slides form a slide show then they need to have these ready and also any sounds that they want to use to add effect to the final production such as background music, sound effects and also what the people on the show will actually be saying. hin the media industry whenever they want to produce a new programme or film.

There are three sections that the research comes under. These three sections are:

• Audience research – this is basically about their target audience and the people that they are aiming to impress with the new production. They look into the demographics of people to work out their target audience. These are things like peoples age, gender, race and sexual orientation.
• Production reearch – this is how they are planning to produce the new programme/film and everything that they will need for it, for eample locations, props and obviously the cast.
• Market research – this is to do with the type of production they are making and whether or not there is room for this as well as everything that is already being shown.

For our contractual and legal assignment we had to write what we understood as being the Stig.

The Stig is the name that the BBC television programme Top Gear gave to their racing driver. He is only known as the Stig and he is a mysterious racing driver that no one seems to really know much about as they are not supposed to know about his real identity. He is the guy that test drives their cars around the Top Gear track to see how well they drive and to see how well they can handle tight corners and fast speeds.

For one of our assignments we had to write about the meaning of intellectual property and also ageism. I found out what intellectual property meant and this was:

Intellectual property refers to things created in someone’s mind. It’s when someone comes up with an idea for something e.g. a new character and as it is them who thought of it, it is then their own intellectual property as they thought of the idea and it was created by them therefore they own it.

Intellectual property gets put into two categories and these are: industrial property and copyright. Industrial property includes things like industrial designs, trademarks and inventions. These are the property of people like those in building companies for example as they have to make the plans and designs for a new building or something similar before they can start to make it.

Copyright includes literary work and artistic work such as drawings, novels, poems, films, musical work, photography and many more. These are the work of people like authors, film producers/directors and musicians. The books they write, the films they produce and the music they write all belong to the one person that came up with the idea for it originally. Copyright protects an authors or musicians way of how they choose to express themselves, however they don’t protect the ideas that they have come up with in the first place to be able to express themselves.

I also found out what ageism meant and this was:

Ageism is basically when someone says someone else can’t do something because of their age.  Its discriminating against people in a certain age range and isn’t very fair on them when these people being a certain age may feel that they are still perfectly able of doing it. Some people may think that, for example, elderly people can’t do a lot of what they could do when they were younger like running around playing games however there are some older people that go running every day so that they can stay fit and healthy and because they enjoy the exercise.

For example on a programme called Countryfile, they dropped some of the presenters and hired new younger ones. They dropped the presenters Miriam O’Reily, Juliet Morris and Michaela Strachan and then hired new presenters, Julia Bradbury and Matt Baker however they kept John Craven on the show who was also older than these new younger presenters.  This was ageism as they told her that the programme was being ‘refreshed’ and they told her she should be ‘careful with those wrinkles when high definition comes in’.

These are both for an assignment we have to do about the Stig from Top Gear and Miriam O’Reily who was a presenter on Countryfile.

For one of our assignments we had to work in pairs on a debate topic we had been given by one of our tutors. My debate was to be against the banning of same sex relationships on television before 9pm.

For the research me and my partner looked up gay rights and the history of gays and same sex relationships.

For the research about the history of gays I used this website: www.stonewall.org.uk

Part of  the research I found is:

• In 1995, Gay Times magazine went on sale in high street stores for the first time.
• In 1998, two British Labour MP’s, David Borrow and Gordon Marsden came out as gay.
• 22nd June 1998, the British House of Commons voted to set the age of consent for gay men to 16.
• Nick Brown MP became the first British Cabinet minister to come out publicly as gay while in post.
• In 1999 Law society proposed that unmarried partners, including same sex couples, should be legally recognised.
• In 2000 Government lifts the ban on lesbian and gay men serving in the armed forces.
• In 2001 age of consent was reduced to 16.
• First same sex partnerhips registered in London. 
• In 2002 equal rights granted to same sex couples applying for adoption.
• Alan Duncan became the first serving British Conservative Paarty MP to voluntarily come out publicly as gay.
• In 2005 first civl partnerships take place in Northern Ireland on 19th December 2005 followed by Scotland on 20th December and then England and Wales on 21st December.  

Got my feedback for my first assignment which was about a media hero and I chose Steven Spielberg and I found out today that I got a merit for it, oh yes !! Now just got to keep working hard on my other assignments but some are going to be hard I bet