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The Media Show

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

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The Media Show: Adverts on the World Service; Daybreak changes; Reader's Digest sale

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19/02/2014

Adverts on the World Service; Daybreak changes; Reader's Digest sale

BBC Radio 4 - The Media Show, Adverts on the World Service; Daybreak changes; Reader's Digest sale

Will another presenter change rescue ITV's Daybreak? Media news with Steve Hewlett.

Adverts on the BBC World Service; the man who plans to save Reader's Digest; and will another presenter change rescue ITV's Daybreak?

MPs have expressed concern about the future funding and growing commercialisation of the World Service. The BBC Trust has agreed that, subject to clearance from government, the World Service can broadcast a limited amount of advertising and sponsored content that is not news and current affairs, from 1 April, when the BBC moves to licence fee funding. Steve Hewlett asks Peter Horrocks about how the audience feels about adverts, and questions him over whether featuring commercial products would threaten the network's impartiality.

Reports this week say ITV has held talks with BBC presenter Susanna Reid in a bid to revive its fortunes in the TV breakfast wars. It's understood Daybreak is set to have another presenter change, with Richard Bacon and Dermot O'Leary also reported to be in the running. It's the latest in a series of relaunches the programme has had since it began in September 2010 in a bid to pull in audiences. Steve Hewlett talks to former head of ITV Daytime Dianne Nelmes, and Liam Hamilton, launch editor and former executive producer of GMTV, about how to save flailing breakfast programmes. 

Reader's Digest is a 76 year old UK publication which, in its heydey, was one of the most popular magazines in the UK. Now, however, it's circulation has dropped to under 200,000. This weekend, it was bought for a nominal sum - said to be £1 - by entrepreneur Mike Luckwell. He says he wants to return the magazine to its glory days by boosting subscribers, offering direct marketing, and potentially putting the website behind a paywall. Steve Hewlett talks to him about how to reshape the magazine, at a time when circulation across the whole of the industry, is falling. 

Producer: Katy Takatsuki
Editor: Andrew Smith.

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