A weekly column from Metropolis A.M. bringing you all the largest tales and tendencies in expertise, media and telecoms
This week:
** Media Second of the Week: Sky Historical past will get tattoo remorse
** Can the reside music sector survive this disaster?
** The tide turns towards Google
Media Second of the Week
This week we flip to Sky Historical past for a masterclass in how to not launch a TV present. The channel has given its new carpentry extravaganza The Chop, erm, the chop, after viewers realised one of many contestants was sporting a number of neo-Nazi tattoos.
Not solely did the incident forged doubts over the channel’s vetting course of, it additionally raised questions over its social media technique. Sky Historical past initially claimed the tattoos had “no political or ideological which means in anyway”, earlier than unexpectedly deleting the tweet and pulling the present.
Stay (music) or let die
Making an attempt to establish the trade worst affected by the coronavirus disaster is an train as troublesome as it’s futile. That stated, reside music, which this week warned that 170,000 jobs could be lost by Christmas, might nicely have a declare to the unenviable title.
The sector, it’s honest to say, is in tatters. It was among the many first to close down in March and can probably be one of many final to reopen. With no finish to the pandemic in sight, trade physique LIVE expects income to plunge 80 per cent this yr.
Rishi Sunak’s extension to the job support scheme, introduced yesterday, will go some approach to limiting the harm. However one trade insider described it as a “pretty small band assist” and warned that the reside music sector will “by no means be the identical once more”.
The query now’s whether or not reside music — an trade value £4.5bn to the UK financial system — will even nonetheless be there when that is throughout.
The main target in protection of this disaster tends to be on recognisable venues, whether or not it’s the Royal Albert Corridor, Ronnie Scott’s or only a native pub. Saving as many of those as doable is, after all, important.
However the issue goes a lot deeper. Every gig creates an enormous tail of employment that runs by means of reserving brokers, ticketing firms, riggers and catering firms, to call however just a few. These elements of the reside music world are struggling simply as a lot however stay, on the entire, neglected.
Add to that the problem of expertise drain, as out-of-work employees are compelled to retrain and the pipeline of latest expertise dries up, and the whole ecosystem is prone to evaporating.
Present help — together with the federal government’s cultural restoration fund — has been very important and the trade itself is adapting, with an enormous acceleration in live-streaming serving to to maintain gigs going.
Nor has demand for reside music subsided. In reality, the urge for food for gigs will maybe be better than ever when normality is lastly restored. However with out additional help for the sector, there’s an actual threat that punters can have nowhere to go.
Learn extra: Screenshot – City A.M.’s new weekly TMT column
Dropping belief
It looks like the online is closing in on Large Tech. Authorities within the US and Brussels are gearing up for a struggle over tax and regulation. Even Netflix is piling in (if you happen to haven’t watched The Social Dilemma but, it’s best to). Now, Google has been hit with the biggest antitrust lawsuit in two decades.
The importance of the case, which accuses Google of a bunch of anti-competitive practices, can’t be overstated. If profitable, it might spark the largest reshaping of Silicon Valley because the monopoly case introduced towards Microsoft in 1998 — the identical yr Google was based.
Google’s defence seems to relaxation on the concept its providers are so dominant just because they’re higher, and customers use them out of alternative not necessity. It’s a disarmingly easy, however finally meretricious, argument. In actuality, it’s a hen and egg scenario. Is Google the largest as a result of it’s the perfect, or vice versa? That’s what the choose has to resolve.
The case will probably run for years, so there’s no level getting too excited simply but. However the lawsuit is one other wave within the ever-mounting tide that’s turning towards tech. Even when Google survives this specific battle, it has loads of work to do to win again belief.
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