CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: The use of unpaid interns by various strands of the PR industry is the big talking point of the moment, it seems, mainly because of a recent BBC documentary that criticised fashion agency Modus Publicity for its use of unpaid trainees.

Modus boss Julian Vogel told PR Week that he felt he had been “stitched up” by the BBC programme makers, adding that the use of unpaid interns was not unusual in his branch of PR, and that such positions offered great training and were a springboard for aspiring fashion publicists to their first paid job. Nevertheless, he admitted he was now reviewing his company’s interns policy.

Commenting on the issue of unpaid interns, the head of agency trade body the PRCA, Francis Ingham, told the trade magazine: “The issue with internships in the industry is a difficult one to talk about sensibly. In an ideal world everyone would be paid at least the minimum wage but I recognise that doesn’t happen and it’s some way off from happening”.

Some people would like to make it happen much quicker though. Former Burson-Marsteller director Robert Minton-Taylor, who now teaches at Leeds Business School, told PR Week he was “ashamed” of his industry using interns in this way, telling the magazine: “I’d like to work with the PRCA, for which I have high regard, to devise a code of conduct to rid us of this odious nil pay graduate culture”.

Which is all well and good, but what do current interns think about all this? Well, the CIPR asked one to comment, and you can read their blog on the issue here.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: New logo alert everybody. Yes, the latest major company to pump big money into a rebrand is insurance firm Standard Life, who have swapped their capital letters and ribbon icon for some trendy lower case text and a little triangle thing.

Coupled with a new slogan, “the way forward”, the new image follows a complete review of the finance firm’s operations by CEO David Nish last year. And their Head Of Marketing, Communications & Brand, Jo Coomber, told Marketing Week the repositioning followed some consumer research which “helped us to define our positioning, to show people the way forward in planning their long term finances and to support them every step of the way, so they have clear sight of the road ahead and know they can rely on us”.

So that’s nice. Actually, as expensive rebrands go, I think the results this time aren’t so bad. Certainly I don’t expect any Gap-style Facebook-campaign-motivated u-turns here.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: The editor of the PR industry’s main trade magazine, PR Week’s Danny Rogers, has been promoted to a new role at the title’s publisher Haymarket. He will become Editor-In-Chief of Brand Media, the division that includes all of Haymarket’s media, marketing and communication industry magazines. He’ll also continue to edit PR Week.

Says that division’s Publishing Director Rachael Stilwell: “Danny has done a superb job in developing and driving the editorial strategy of PRWeek. His success here, coupled with his vision and ideas for the future of our content, make him the perfect candidate for this new, exciting role”.

Rogers added: “I remain passionate about the PR industry and the developing role of professional comms within public life. The new role means I will still be closely involved with PR, while developing new types of content for the whole media and marketing sphere”.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: It’s thought that IPC Media could sell off more of its titles after last year offloading Loaded and some specialist magazines like Aeroplane and Ships Monthly.

The Time Warner owned publisher undertook a business review and restructure last year, and management are now reportedly looking at the whole IPC portfolio and considering their options. Individual titles, or families of titles, or whole divisions may be put up for sale, anonymous sources say, though they add that the option of Time Warner selling IPC outright seems unlikely.

Meanwhile a spokesman for Time Warner told reporters: “Of course we conduct regular reviews of all of our businesses to ensure we remain competitive, but there is no plan for any further action at IPC”.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has hired investment bank Allen & Co to look into selling its flagging web firm MySpace, and according to Reuters it has been contacted by about 50 interested parties.

News Corps management let it be known they were looking to sell the one time king of the social network domain last month, it having seen its traffic and ad sales slump in recent years. Despite a rebrand and revamp late last year, many still see MySpace as being greatly inferior to other social networking and content sharing services.

It’s thought no actual offers have been made as yet, though the boss of one company which is known to have bid, JNJ Mobile, told the news agency he’d expect to pay anything between $50 million and $200 million.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: Be careful what you tweet, pesky journalists might be watching. The Press Complaints Commission has rejected a claim from a civil servant who said the Daily Mail and Independent On Sunday invaded her privacy when they published tweets she had sent out to her Twitter followers dissing the government’s cuts and spin-doctoring.

Sarah Baskerville, somewhat optimistically I think, claimed that what she said to her followers via the micro-blogging platform was private and newspapers didn’t have a right to re-publish her comments. But the PCC did not concur. The Commission said that unprotected Twitter feeds were in the public domain so privacy claims were invalid.

The PCC said: “It was quite clear that the potential audience for the information was actually much larger than the 700 people who followed the complainant directly, not least because any message could easily be retweeted to a wider audience. The decision also took into account civil service rules on political impartiality, which the newspapers said justified highlighting Ms Baskerville’s views”.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: So, just over a week ago we were reporting on how David Cameron had been busy defending his chief PR man Andy Coulson, insisting the Tory’s top spin-doctor ran a “proper, transparent and decent” press office. It all seems such a long time ago now doesn’t it? But it’s less than a week since Coulson subsequently quit his top comms job as questions around just how many journalists were involved in dodgy phone hacking at the News Of The World while he was editor there continued to be asked. Coulson remarked, when the spokesman needs a spokesman, it’s time to leave.

Some of Coulson’s supporters have hit out at those who just won’t shut up about the NOTW phone hacking scandal, pointing out that their man – who maintains he was never aware of the hacking – had already accepted the buck once and stepped down as editor of the tabloid for allowing the dodgy tactics to be employed on his watch. A particular target for those supporters was The Guardian, whose media team have been key in keeping this story alive, having never believed the claims by Coulson and NOTW publishers News International that the phone hacking was employed by just one journalist and one external agent.

Laying into The Guardian particularly harshly at the weekend was that one time tabloid editor, subsequent talent show judge, and now star of CNN Piers Morgan, who tweeted: “Very sad to hear news about Andy Coulson – good man, good friend. How many times does @guardian want people to quit over same thing? If @guardian abhors publication of material obtained by dodgy methods so much, where does that leave them on Wikileaks? The Guardian has fried sources (Tisdall), used fake faxes (Aitken), run stolen prurient docs (Wikileaks – Gaddafi secret lovers)... and their Professor of Journalism Mr Greenslade deliberately faked Spot The Ball while editing Maxwell’s Mirror so no reader could win. Final thought re The Guardian scalping Andy Coulson: ‘Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo’ – Ambrose Bierce”.

But for The Guardian Coulson’s second resignation is not the end of this story, even if the PR industry dimension has come to a close. Indeed the ‘Greenslade’ Piers refers to there wrote this piece last Friday arguing that Coulson’s departure from the government’s spin centre mustn’t be the end of the phone hacking investigation.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: The PR Consultants Association has announced a new partnership which will see the trade body make its training services available in the Middle East. The deal is with an organisation called Emirates Consulting & Media Services, and will see PRCA provide face-to-face training in the UAE and other Gulf states.

Confirming the new partnership, PRCA chief Francis Ingham told esPResso: “We are determined to grow the PRCA‘s offering globally, and this strategic partnership will give us a powerful presence in one of the world’s undoubted growth regions, the Middle East. This is very much a win-win for all concerned. We will guarantee the calibre of trainers through our accredited trainer procedures, while PRCA and Emirates Consulting & Media Services will market on a cross regional basis, and provide local logistical knowledge. Equally, Middle Eastern PR professionals will now have access to the very latest PR thinking, provided through the UK’s very best trainers”.

Elsewhere in PRCA training news, the trade body recently confirmed it would be offering free access to some of its more junior-level courses to participants of the ‘diversity in PR’ graduate programme run by the Taylor Bennett Foundation and hosted by esPResso publishers Unicorn Jobs.

The Advertising Standards Authority has banned Coca-Cola from using the word “nutritious” in the marketing of its Vitamin Water range because of the drink’s sugar content. Three people complained about Coke’s description of the drinks as “nutritious”, and the ASA last week said it agreed that the average consumer would not expect that word to be used with a product containing as much sugar as Vitamin Water.

Coke said it was disappointed with the decision, which it said was due to a semantic disagreement regarding the nature of the word “nutritious”. They insist Vitamin Water has less sugar in it than some of the complainants claimed, while adding that each bottle contains 100% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C as well as other vitamins. They, of course, are nutrients. Then again so is sugar, so the ASA is possibly right to say simply containing nutrients is not enough to call something “nutritious”.

Says the ASA: “Because Vitamin Water contained about a quarter of a consumer’s GDA (guideline daily amount) for sugar as well as the added vitamins, we considered that the description of Vitamin Water as ‘nutritious’ was misleading”.

But a Coke man told The Guardian: “We have always been completely transparent that the drinks contain 23g of sugar in each 500ml bottle, which has been prominently labelled on pack since launch. We do not believe that this detracts from the vitamin and mineral content of the drinks”.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: Women are severly under-represented at the top of the UK advertising industry, according to a report by the Institute of Practitioners In Advertising. Perhaps ad agencies employ Sky Sports presenters as recruitment consultants.

According to the report, there is a general lack of diversity in the advertising and marketing industries, which are dominated, they say, by relatively young white men. It’s true that lower down the hierarchy the male/female split is pretty much 50/50, but the report says that in higher ranking positions only 22.4% of ad execs are women.

That said, the IPA did say the ad industry had become slightly more diverse in the last twelve months – for example 2.4% more of senior ad execs were now women. But I suspect many would argue a lot more good be done to make the advertising sector more diverse, in terms of age, gender and ethnicity.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: Topman is the latest brand to turn its music sponsorship work into a TV programme via Channel 4, a network who airs a lot of brand-led music programming in off-peak slots. The retailer has commissioned production company CC Lab to make a six edition series of music programmes around its Topman CTRL campaign. It will be presented by Radio 1’s Huw Stephens.

Each edition will have a guest who helps pick the bands that play – they’ll be the ‘controller’ see, or the ‘ctrlr’ presumably – and lined up for that role are Mark Ronson, Inbetweener James Buckley and Misfit Iwan Rheon. There’ll also be features about the grass roots music industry, with spotlights on record labels, bloggers and fanzines.

Says Topman marketing man Jason Griffiths: “The Topman CTRL MX shows will provide us another opportunity in cementing our partnership with Channel 4 and an exciting new facet to the already established CTRL initiative by the introduction of Huw Stephens and his fellow controller guests. After the two years of solid delivery on this initiative it naturally felt right that this was the next milestone to propel CTRL into a new level of marrying music with fashion”.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: As expected, the BBC this week announced it would cut 360 staff from their online operations.

Commercial media companies have long criticised the Corporation’s expansive online operations, especially where websites do not directly relate to a BBC channel or programme. In the early days of the internet, with streaming audio and video in its infancy, the BBC launched a string of free-to-access text-based websites, putting the state-owned broadcaster directly into competition with newspaper and magazine publishers for the first time. And they did so very successfully, with BBC.co.uk being the biggest British website by far, and one of the biggest original-content sites in the world.

But commercial publishers argue that it’s not in the BBC‘s core remit to offer such services, and that in doing so it takes away audience from their web-based platforms, making it harder to monetise those services through either ad sales or subscriptions. And with streaming audio and video now very much part of the internet, some in the publishing sector would like the BBC to stop providing non-multi-media-based online content altogether, ie only use the web to present broadcast content in a more accessible way rather than creating bespoke websites that compete head on with commercial rivals.

While the BBC isn’t planning on going that far, the Corporation does admit that its online operations have grown too big, and that a lack of strategic oversight has meant the Beeb is running a random assortment of services many of which most of its audience are unaware of, and which are more or less impossible to access via the BBC.co.uk home page.

The jobs cull, which should be complete by 2013, will also be accompanied by a revamp of the Corporation’s online operations, which bosses hope will lead to more coordination between different parts of the BBC‘s wider website, and more strategic planning from the top, especially when new services are proposed. In the region of 200 stand-alone BBC websites will be shut as part of the cuts. Many belong to now defunct TV or radio shows, though some are higher profile, such as the websites for digital radio services like 1Xtra, 5Live Sports Extra, 6music and Radio 7.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: Publishers Hachette Filipacchi have announced they are axing their teen-focused magazine Sugar, but will maintain the brand online via its Sugarscape platform.

In a statement the publisher noted that it is increasingly difficult to sell printed media to the teenage market. They said: “Over the past decade the teen magazine market has declined by 75 per cent as teens spend their media time on mobile and web platforms and increasingly expect to receive content for free”.

The Press Gazette quoted the magazine’s publisher Rita Lewis, who said: “While, as publishers, we recognise reluctantly that Sugar magazine is no longer a viable business, we are pleased to be able to continue to invest in Sugarscape.com, which delivers a healthy return, underpinning our decision to focus on the digital platform”.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: The two biggest music company, Sony Music and Universal Music, earlier this month announce they will start putting records on sale as soon as they are serviced to radio.

Traditionally the radio-focused PR teams at record companies (usually called the promotions team in the industry) would supply new singles to radio stations 4–6 weeks before they were made available to the public via the high street or download stores like iTunes.

The idea is to build a buzz around a song before its release, maximising first week sales and therefore chart position, which in turn provides a promotional boost to the album the song comes from, which is where record companies traditionally make most money.

But some in the music industry have argued for a while that it is during the gap between songs appearing on radio and songs going live on iTunes et al that a lot of impatient young consumers download music from illegal sources for free – tracks often appearing on illegal file-sharing sites as or before they appear on radio. Said file-sharers will claim that if they could buy the music from iTunes as soon as they hear it on Radio 1 they would, but as they can’t they go the illegal route.

Following Universal and Sony’s announcement, all singles from those companies – including releases from Lady Gaga, Take That and the X-Factor acts – will appear on iTunes at the same time as radio. Whether impatient file-sharers will actually now buy rather than steal their tunes remains to be seen, though it will mean there is one less excuse if and when the government introduces new anti-piracy measures that could lead to those who file-share having their net connections temporaily suspended.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: David Cameron has told the BBC that Downing Street’s communications operation is more “transparent and decent” under his comms chief Andy Coulson than under some of the chief spin-doctors employed by the last government.

The PM was speaking to Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme as the controversy grows around the use of dodgy phone hacking tactics by News Of The World journalists while Coulson was editor at the tabloid. The government comms man quit his NOTW editorship over the phone hacking scandal, even though both he and the top guard at publishers News International insisted – and still insist – that they were unaware any such hacking was going on.

The whole thing is in the news again because new evidence suggests more NOTW staffers were involved in the hacking than previously admitted. And while Coulson maintains his innocence, renewed focus on the hacking story puts new pressure on both the PR man and his boss Cameron.

But the PM remains loyal to his chief communicator, telling Radio 4: “I have to say I haven’t received a single complaint about the way my press office and press communications operates. I think they work in a very proper, transparent and decent way. And that hasn’t always been the case in the past”.

Of course the latter remark alludes to the controversial figures that worked in the Downing Street press office under recent Labour governments, in particular the always contentious Alastair Campbell under Tony Blair, and the disgraced Damion McBride under Gordon Brown, who was forced to resign after leaked emails showed he’d attempted to smear then opposition MPs.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: The Chartered Institute of Public Relations has announced plans to launch a new national mentoring scheme, which will link newcomers to the industry with more experience communications professionals who will offer coaching and careers advice.

As step one of this new programme, the CIPR will stage a training event for willing mentors advising them on how to approach such a role, ensuring that those doing the mentoring are equipped to offer truly valuable support to their mentees. Details of that training event, due to take place in March, will be announced soon.

Commenting on the new programme, former CIPR President Jay O’Connor, who has already signed up as a mentor, told esPResso: “The CIPR‘s mentoring scheme is an exciting new development that will encourage and empower PR practitioners to achieve their potential. The scheme will help to grow talent by understanding the needs of an individual and matching them to someone who can add real value in that specific area”.

To get involved email markw@cipr.co.uk.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: Business confidence amongst the UK’s marketing community is down to its lowest level in a year and a half. Perhaps it’s all the cold weather we’ve had of late.

According to the regular Bellwether survey, complied by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising and accountants BDO, in the last quarter of 2010 marketing executives became more pessimistic about the chances of economic recovery coming in 2011, with 22% of companies revising their marketing budgets downwards as a result. That is likely to hit advertising and agency spend.

Possibly as a result, 32% of those surveyed said they thought the financial prospects for the marketing industry as a whole in 2011 had also deteriorated in recent months.

So, pretty doomy and gloomy, though the IPA point out that while optimism had declined in recent months, marketers are not as pessimistic as they were in 2008 and 2009 as the UK economy went into recession. IPA President Rory Sutherland told reporters: “That these latest figures reveal a decline in confidence is disappointing, but characteristic of the uncertain climate we find ourselves in”.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: Heineken are launching a new global ad campaign which will see the lager brand, which currently uses 15 different straplines around the world, adopt the same slogan worldwide – “Open your world”.

The new campaign will centre on a series of TV ads following a smooth operator as he works his way through various social situations. The new campaign will launch on Facebook – where else? – before arriving on UK media and then rolling out around the world.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: The Independent’s streamlined sister title i is getting a media page each Monday. Edited by The Indy’s media editor Ian Burrell, the page will cover key developments in the media and communications industries. There is also a tie up with B2B publishers Haymarket, with the editors of their PR and ad industry magazines – PR Week’s Danny Rogers and Campaign’s Claire Beale – both providing regular columns (they’ll alternate week to week).

Confirming the new page, Burrell told reporters: “The i is a concise new newspaper aimed at a modern readership with a big interest in the media and how it works. We will have dedicated coverage on the subject every Monday with insightful columns from the best specialist writers such as Claire Beale on advertising and Danny Rogers on Public Relations”.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: A new quarterly magazine will launch next month aimed at the parents of children with autism, which might sound like a niche audience until you read the stat that one in 58 children in the UK have one form of autism or another.

The new title, called Austim Eye, has been created by married journalists Gillian Loughran and Mark Hayes, who are parents of a child with autism. Loughran told the Press Gazette: “We felt other parents should be informed about ways to improve their children’s lives through in-depth coverage. We aim to keep readers informed about the latest research into autism and treatments, and also to inspire them with stories of parents who are making a difference to their child’s life”.

The magazine will be available by subscription from www.autismeye.com

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs had been due to share a stage in San Francisco this week to officially launch The Daily, the new iPad only newspaper being developed by Murdoch’s News Corp. However, the launch was pushed back last week.

One of News Corp’s biggest digital innovations to date, the media mogul reportedly hopes the new subscription-based digital venture – which will only be accessible via the Apple tablet device, and not via the web – might help kick-start a new era of digital media, one where people willingly pay to access content.

Yesterday it was announced Jobs would step back from his day to day executive responsibilities at Apple for the time being for health reasons, though that doesn’t seem to be behind the delayed launch of The Daily.

The most likely explanation is that put forward by All Things Digital, that there are technical problems with the subscription function in iTunes through which the new digital publication will be delivered.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: Financial PR firm Financial Dynamics, or FD as it has been known since 2007, is set to change its name again.

The agency adopted the shorter FD brand to communicate its expertise went beyond its traditional specialism area of financial communications. The new rebrand is seemingly part of a strategy by parent company FTI Consulting, which acquired FD in 2006, to apply one consistent name to all its businesses. What that brand will be isn’t yet clear, though a simple extension of the FTI name is presumably an option being considered.

FTI‘s CEO Jack Dunn told PR Week: “We believe one brand more powerfully represents the mission of our firm and enhances the ability of our professionals to provide total solutions to our clients from across a multitude of skill sets and capabilities from around the firm and around the world. We also believe one brand strategy will enhance our brand recognition, especially in markets that are new to us and where brand is increasingly important in clients’ decision making”.

FD’s rebrand will be part of a wider rejig in the City and corporate PR sector in 2011, which will also see a new arrival in the form of the Stockwell Group, a new agency being formed by former Brunswicker Tim Burt, with one of FD’s co-founders, Julian Hanson-Smith, on its board.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: So, could thousands of years of political conflict be solved with some simple advertising copy? Could disputed borders be redrawn through a bit of publicity blurb? No, not even the ad man is that powerful.

But nevertheless, the Board Of Deputies of British Jews has welcomed the news that the Advertising Standards Authority will investigate an advert placed by the Palestinian Ministry Of Tourism & Antiquities in National Geographic’s Traveller magazine which some have seen as a propoganda move by the Palestinian government.

The Board says the advert, which talks about Palestine lying “between the Mediterranean coast and Jordan River”, is attempting to deny the existence of Israel. The ASA has confirmed it has received over 60 complaints about the ad and will now investigate, news that was welcomed by The Board Of Deputies’ CEO Jon Benjamin, who told The Guardian he hoped an “objective review” would “result in the necessary action”.

It’s not the first time the political conflict between Israel and Palestine has spilled over into the world of advertising. Last year the ASA ruled against two adverts issue by Israel’s tourist office for using imagery from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (or ‘occupied territories’ or ‘disputed territories’ depending on your term of choice) and implying such places could be seen on a trip to Israel itself.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: The Financial Times has launched a new online service focused on emerging economies, called FT Tilt.

The new service has community, news and analysis sections, with limited access available to non-paying FT.com readers, and full access to paying subscribers. The new website is being run by an editorial staff of ten based in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Eastern Europe, and South and East Asia.

Eight of the FT Tilt team are new, while two existing FT staffers, Stacy Marie-Ishmael and Paul Murphy, move from the paper’s Alphaville service to take the roles of Editor and Editor In Chief on the new venture.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: ITV News has announced it is partnering with US TV network NBC in some regions around the world by sharing correspondents. Rohit Kachroo has been appointed as a joint Africa correspondent for both organisations, while ITV‘s Middle East man John Ray will also now provide reports for the US network, supported by NBC‘s production team in Israel.

Commenting on the partnership, NBC‘s International News Director Chris Hampson told The Guardian: “In a world of cultural and political interdependency, it is vital that we deliver to our audience first-hand reporting from wherever news happens. This partnership with award-winning ITV News expands our depth and reach into cultures, governments and events in parts of the world that are of critical importance to our viewers”.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: Major job cuts are expected to kick in at MySpace later today, with the London office likely to be left with just a skeleton staff.

Rumours that News Corp owned MySpace could shed up to half of its workforce began circulating online over the Christmas break. The one time king of social networking has been struggling for some time as both web traffic and ad revenues slump, with Facebook and Twitter now dominating in what was MySpace’s traditional territory. Attempts to reposition as an entertainment sharing portal have not, as yet, really delivered.

There has been increasing speculation that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are hoping to sell its flagging web business, and some reckon the axing of half of the firm’s 1100 staff may be designed to make the company more attractive to potential buyers.

According to reports, the cuts will be confirmed today, at 5pm London time. Ahead of that announcement, it emerged yesterday that MySpace’s VP of Commerical, Simon Daglish, has already jumped ship to ITV.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: As expected, the PR Consultants Association has announced it will appeal the recent High Court ruling regarding whether or not a licence is needed from the Newspaper Licensing Agency when PR or cuttings agencies provide lists of links to articles about their clients.

As previously reported, the NLA says a licence is needed, just like when actual copies of articles are provided to clients, or distributed by a PR team within a company. But the PRCA argues that when a PR is providing links that simply direct clients or colleagues to original articles on a newspaper’s own website, no such licence should be required.

Both the PRCA and cuttings company Meltwater are taking the matter to the Copyright Tribunal, the special court that considers copyright issues. However, in the meantime the NLA took Meltwater to the High Court to reinforce its claim that cuttings companies and their clients should pay a licence fee when links lists are exchanged, and they won.

As partners with Meltwater on this dispute, the PRCA has announced it will appeal that High Court ruling as well as fighting the links licence at the Copyright Tribunal. Confirming the appeal, PRCA boss Francis Ingham has posted a video message in which, according to PR Week, he says: “We were disappointed by the High Court’s decision and believe it fundamentally to be flawed. We believe it risks putting an end to the freedom with which information can be shared on the internet. The implication is that the mere act of browsing freely accessible websites will require a copyright licence. We are therefore appealing the decision”.

You can see Ingham’s full video message here.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: While, as previously reported, Communities Minister Eric Pickles’s mega cuts in local government expenditure will almost definitely result in head count reductions in council communication teams across the country as well as a cut back on agency expenditure in the short term, some reckon the cuts could actually result in new opportunities for communications consultancies in the medium to long term. The optimism is based on the fact that other government initiatives will need more communications expertise, and with in-house teams stripped back councils will rely even more on agency support.

Bottle PR director Carole Scott shared her optimism with PR Week this week. She said: “If ‘The Big Society’ is to take shape, then local authorities will need to develop effective communications. So the cuts are likely to affect PR agencies in two ways. Money for projects and campaigns run by agencies will probably disappear quickly. But in the medium term we could see reduced in-house teams turning to agencies to deliver core programmes that in the past would have been handled by their own staff”.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: Interested in what agencies are up for a Consultancy Of The Year prize from PR intelligence people The Holmes Report? Go on, it might be you. Well, unless you work in-house. That would be a considerable achievement, even for you.

Anyway, The Holmes Report will next month publish a list of what it considers to be the leading consultancies of the moment in each region and comms sector, with the winners getting to go to lovely dinner in Prague next May.

For now we have the five contenders for each award. I’ll tell you that up for the Best UK Consultancy prize are Cirkle, Good Relations, Freud, Nelson Bostock and Publicasity. But that’s all you’re getting for free. For the rest you’re going to have to click on this link.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: Sony are planning some experiential marketing to educate the kids that when it comes to portable music devices, it’s the ‘walkman’ you should be digging, not this new fangled iPod nonsense.

The electronics giant will be touring a ‘Walkman Studio’ in various shopping centres around the country in which bored shoppers can partake in a little karaoke or dancing, posting evidence of their efforts to their social media profiles, if they dare. The aim, in among all the young shoppers singing and dancing, is to promote the latest digital Walkman range, the E series.

Sony’s Walkman marketing man Omar Gurnah told Marketing: “We want to give young people the opportunity to touch and try the new Walkman E Series from Sony, and to experience all the great features and wide range of colours available. The Walkman Studio creates a fun and engaging experience-led campaign, giving young people the chance to get their hands on a Walkman”.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: The International Editor of Time Out, Marcus Webb, is launching a new premium-priced quarterly magazine called Delayed Gratification which will round up developments in politics, science, culture and sport from the previous three months. He says that with a little more time to reflect on and reconsider world events his magazine will be able to offer an alternative look at the world to the rolling-news media.

Webb, who will continue to work at Time Out in addition to editing the new title, thinks Delayed Gratification is a perfect publication for the flagging print media market, and provides a great medium for certain advertisers.

He told Media Week: “The magazine is not a mass market title, it’s a targeted and high quality publication offering an uncluttered advertising environment. As such we’ll be looking at high-end advertising brands in the financial, luxury goods, automotive and travel categories which we believe would match the audience profile”.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: In the new year a new website will launch called RadioPlayer which will offer streaming services from loads of UK radio stations.

A collaboration between both the BBC and most major commercial radio companies, the site will offer a one-stop shop for British radio, as well as offering commercial stations a BBC iPlayer style streaming platform that will almost certainly be better than their own existing online set ups. What is particularly exciting is that student and community radio stations will also be able to add their streaming output to the platform for as little as £90 a year, potentially giving those smaller services access to a whole new audience.

The service’s MD Michael Hill told Radio Today this week: “One of RadioPlayer’s founding principles is fairness – we want to create a level playing field where the UK radio industry can agree on technology, and compete on content. That’s why we’ve published this simple, egalitarian funding model”.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: Oh dear, surely someone should have thought about how this would work out? Phone firm Vodafone launched a competition last week giving customers the chance to win a new mobile. All they had to do to enter was tweet something that made them happy along with the ‘hashtag’ #mademesmile. A special website was set up where any such Tweet automatically appeared.

Which was a risky move for a company whose appearances on social media sites of late have been mainly as part of Facebook campaigns over the firm’s rather controversial tax arrangements. Needless to say, campaigners quickly cottoned on that they could get their comments on a Vodafone website just be employing the smiley hastag. And so the phone firm’s site became host to a lot of anti-Vodafone commentary. Until the spam engines of the world also cottoned on to the hashtag and filled the page with low-rent advertising messages.

Social media campaigns like this are fun but probably need some moderation, even if that is time consuming, especially if your company has been getting so much bad press of late.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: This is interesting. The Office Of Fair Trading has criticised companies who make postings on blogs or send out strategically targeted tweets on behalf of paying clients without declaring that is what they are doing. Well, they have criticised one company in particular for doing this, but it possibly sets a precedent that undeclared promotional blogging or tweeting, ie where an agency pretends to be a neutral third party, is possibly against the law.

According to The Guardian, the targeted agency was London-based Handpicked Media. However that agency’s boss, Krista Madden, has welcomed the OFT ruling, insisting that she always advises her clients to be upfront about their promotional blog commenting and that the complaint against her company stemmed from a single undeclared promotional tweet that was the exception rather than the rule with regards her work. She has now committed to always declare the promotional nature of her postings.

But, Madden says, undeclared blog posting and tweeting is widespread, with a number of her competitors operating in this space. The OFT has not said it intends to investigate those other companies, but this week’s ruling may be food for thought for anyone providing such a service.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: The permanent secretary for government communication, Matt Tee, has announced he will step down from his job at the Cabinet Office next March and will not be replaced. The news is further confirmation that the current government plans to considerably cut back on the size of its communication operations.

In a letter to staff, seen by PR Week, Tee admitted that with upcoming budget cuts government comms will be considerably reduced, to the extent that there will no longer be a need for someone at a permanent secretary level to be concerned exclusively with communications.

According to PR Week, he said in his note: “The work to reconfigure parts of government communication and to make very significant savings in departmental communications will be very challenging. I recognise that it will be difficult to justify a permanent secretary role as head of a smaller communications profession and I am going to seek fresh challenges”.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: A press release issued by a quirky online retail company called Woot.com has been garnering some online comment, most of it positive, for the way it dealt with a usually dry topic – a takeover – in a suitably quirky way.

Announcing that they had been bought by Amazon, Woot’s press office issued the following statement: “Holy crap! Woot has signed an agreement with Amazon – yes, the Amazon – to become an independent subsidiary of the ecommerce colossus. Woot HQ will remain in Carrollton, Texas, and will operate as autonomously as other Amazon companies like Zappos and Audible. More details forthcoming after we pick our eyeballs up off of the floor. Anybody see where Lefty rolled off to?” A more serious announcement did later follow.

Check some comments on the informal announcement at the PR Newser website.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: The new series of Alan Partridge starring Steve Coogan is up for a gong at this year’s South Bank Show Awards, which is interesting because the comedy show was funded and hosted by Fosters.

It’s an example of the emerging phenomenon of ‘branded content’ where brands, rather than doing a deal with a TV network to sponsor one of their shows, commission a programme maker direct to make exclusive content for them, which is usually then hosted on the brand’s own website utilising YouTube’s streaming technology. By hosting the content online the sponsor can have much more overt branding that if they funded a show on a conventional TV network that is governed by OfCom rules.

It’s the first time a piece of so called branded content has been nominated for an award alongside conventional TV shows. The Fosters-owned programme will compete with the BBC shows ‘Rev’ and ‘Getting On’ for the comedy award at Melvyn Bragg’s annual awards show, which takes place on 25 Jan.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: It was revealed last week that two of the UK’s biggest newspaper groups – the Daily Mail & General Trust and Trinity Mirror – recently considered a deal which would have given the former a stake in the latter.

The deal considered earlier this year would have seen the Daily Mail owners transfer ownership of their regional papers, operated by their Northcliffe business, to Trinity Mirror, who would merge them with their own regional newspaper business. In return the Mail would get both cash and shares in its rival.

The Guardian noted that had the deal gone ahead it would have been the first time Trinity Mirror had had a “strategic shareholder” since the days of Robert Maxwell. As it happened, the deal didn’t go through, though The Guardian cites Mail insiders as saying bosses there have not ruled it out as a future possibility.

Regional newspapers have suffered more than most in recent years as the bottom fell out of the classified ad market in the Google age. Trinity Mirror are the one company who seem to be tackling the challenges ahead in that sector by expanding through title acquisition, presumably hoping economies of scale will enable their growing regional newspaper portfolio to survive.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: The government’s Justice Minister this week told those campaigning for a reform of UK defamation laws that he agreed the country’s current libel rules were “not fit for purpose”, adding that he would measure the success of his entire ministerial career based on his efforts to reform libel legislation next year.

Lord McNally was speaking at an event organised by the Libel Reform Campaign. One area of particular concern to campaigners is the affect some recent libel actions have had on science journalism, with some publishers now wary of publishing legitimate scientific criticism of some company’s work for fear of receiving a libel lawsuit.

At the same event research was published that showed between a third and a half of scientific editors at both specialist and mainstream titles had been threatened with legal action, and had toned down legitimate critiques because of libel concerns.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: One of the interesting questions posed by the increasing importance of social media as a corporate communication channel is who in a company should control the Twitter and Facebook account. Marketing have traditionally communicated to customers, but PR are better trained at dealing directly with stakeholders one to one. Both, therefore, have a claim to be the department best skilled for social media interaction.

But in a new survey by Wildfire PR, two thirds of marketing directors interviewed did not see PR has having a legitimate role in their company’s social media activity. Somewhat bizarrely, one fifth of those surveyed said they thought such things should be handled by the IT department, which is a worrying result to say the least (and no offense to any IT types out there in esPResso land!)

Some digital-savvy PRs have suggested the results of this survey suggest that many senior marketeers have yet to fully comprehend the importance of social media as a communications tool. Said marketeers should probably listen to Rob Dyson, PR Manager at children’s charity Whizz-Kidz, who, when asked about this survey by PR Week this week, said: “Clearly a number of marketers believe social media are technical tools or an extension of the company website that IT should manage. But it is not just a bit of software and needs to be run by a part of an organisation that is personable”.

He cautioned: “Twitter is not just about putting out ads, it is about building relationships. There needs to be a clear PR strategy behind it and someone in the business needs to have the inclination to use it for conversation regularly, or not use it at all”.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: The PR industry has suffered a setback in its attempt to challenge the online licences being enforced by the Newspaper Licensing Agency, though the cuttings company taking the initiative on this, Meltwater, says it is only a temporary set back.

As previously reported, under copyright law PR or cuttings agencies, or in-house communication departments, that make copies of newspaper articles to distribute to clients or staff need a licence to do so, even when the articles are about the client or company. Such a licence is available from the NLA, which represents eight newspaper owners.

In the physical newspaper and photocopier world this isn’t especially controversial (well, not anymore), but increasingly PR and cuttings agencies don’t provide photocopied cuttings, instead sending a list of relevant headlines and links to where clients can find the full article online. But the NLA insists that that needs a licence too. The PR and cuttings sectors do not agree.

Meltwater are taking the matter to the Copyright Tribunal, the special court that considers disputes between the licencees and licensors of copyright material. But while that goes through the motions the NLA took Meltwater to the High Court over the issue, and that’s where the set back occurred.

The London court last week ruled that a copyright did, indeed, still exist in the headlines being provided in link lists, and therefore some sort of licence was still required from the NLA.

Needless to say, the newspaper industry welcomed the ruling. Meltwater admitted it was disappointed with the outcome, but insisted this court case was really a distraction, and that it’s the Tribunal hearing, currently schedule for February, that everyone should focus on. Nevertheless it does plan to appeal last week’s ruling.

Meanwhile Francis Ingham of the PR Consultants Association, who have backed Meltwater in their efforts on the links licence, tweeted: “Whatever end result of #PRCA & Meltwater case vs NLA I’m proud we alone stood up to them – everybody else chickened out”.

Meltwater argue that claiming anyone who provides headlines and links to newspaper articles in the course of their business needs a licence has major ramifications on every day use of the internet.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: Matthew Freud is reportedly looking to buy his Freud Communications PR agency out of the Publicis Group. The French advertising and communications giant has had a 50.1% stake in the London-based PR company for five years now. According to The Guardian Freud is in talks with Publicis chiefs about buying them out of his company, though there is currently a disagreement as to what their stake is worth.

A source told the paper: “Everyone agrees it is a good idea, I think it will end up being done although there is some way to go yet. Both sides have found it difficult at times and he has done this before, sell it high and try and buy it back cheap”.

As that there source alludes, it’s not the first time Freud has declared independence from a big group owner. In 1994 Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO bought the agency, but Freud bought it back in 2001.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: PR agencies are spending more and more on pitching for new business according to a survey by the Healthcare Communications Association. They say that the amount of money spent on pitching continues to rise above any increases in the average agency’s turnover.

And Mark Swainson of one health comms agency, Virgo Health, agrees that the effort going into pitches now is more then ever. He told PR Week: “There’s no such thing as a simple pitch any more. We’re expected to draw on a bigger breath of deliverables; therefore a pitch must draw in from a number of diverse types of inputs, such as digital and public affairs. To stand out form the crowd, there seems to be more of an onus on creativity. There’s a big creative element to how we present and this comes at a cost”.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: One in ten British consumers will use their mobile phone to buy some Christmas presents this year as the smart phone really comes of age. And, according to figures compiled by Tesco, a third of people now use their mobile phones as shopping devices. In the US a Mobile Marketing Association found a similar number of consumers planning to do some festive shopping via their phone this year.

All of which surely makes mobile-phone-based marketing and communications activity a bigger priority in 2011. Mobile marketing has a lot in common with other online-based communications activity, though consumers interact with mobile devices in different ways to their PC at home or work. Agencies who can find ways to fully exploit the mobile internet as a communications channel could find themselves at a big advantage in the coming year as the good old phone handset becomes a purchasing device for ever more people.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: Magazine makers IPC will launch a new mass-market title for the homes and interiors market next year. Think of a less cool (less pretentious?) version of Wallpaper aimed at a much more mainstream readership. The new title, called Style At Home, will be soft launched in February next year with plans to roll it out properly in early summer.

There are plenty of titles already operating in this space, especially if you count all the home and interior pieces you get in the weekend newspaper supplements, but insiders say IPC reckon that, with a more mainstream approach to this area, there is a gap in the market. We’ll see I guess. Still, should be a great new outlet for PRs operating in this space.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: There was me hoping that, as we headed into a decade that may possibly be called ‘the teens’, we could forget that anyone ever called the last ten years ‘the noughties’ and start using the much less offensive historical standard ‘the twenty hundreds’. But now Absolute Radio have launched Absolute Radio Noughties, or Absolute Radio 00s if we are being totally correct.

Absolute’s latest digital spin-off will play the best rock and crossover urban music from the last ten years, name-checking Coldplay, The Killers, Kings Of Leon, Outkast, Black Eyed Peas and Eminem in their press blurb. Available on the digital network in London and via a mobile phone app nationally, the new service will include an extra hour of the Christian O’Connell breakfast show in its first month on air because apparently that’s a good thing.

Absolute CEO Donnach O’Driscoll told reporters: “Absolute Radio believes in a digital future for broadcast radio and we are seizing the opportunity of DAB in the UK, especially in London. Our recent station launches and the RAJAR performances they have achieved proves there is an appetite for good content on digital radio – the rest of the commercial industry needs to follow our lead and invest in content on these platforms”.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: It is thought the Daily Telegraph will join the paywall party in the New Year by starting to charge for some of its online content. Although following the lead set by News International, who have made their Times and News Of The World websites subscription-based, it is thought the Telegraph will not make their entire website pay-to-use, instead charging for premium services and iPhone and iPad apps.

Insiders say that Telegraph chiefs are still considering their options and no decisions have, as yet, been made, though once they are the paper could move fast to introduce any new fee structures.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Usher yesterday signed off their respective social media profiles as part of a fundraising effort for Alicia Key’s chosen charity Keep A Child Alive. The deal is they won’t return to Facebook or Twitter until $1 million has been raised. I wonder if we donated $2 million if the c’lebs could be persuaded to stop incessantly rambling on Twitter for ever?

The charitable social media boycott was timed to coincide with World AIDS Day. Participating celebrities also recorded videos where they lay inside a coffin and announced their (albeit temporary) ‘digital deaths’. Keep A Child Alive co-founder and president Leigh Blake said the videos were tongue in cheek, but posed an interesting question, saying: “We’re trying to sort of make the remark: ‘Why do we care so much about the death of one celebrity as opposed to millions and millions of people dying [from AIDS and HIV]’”.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: Coca-Cola are giving people the chance to post messages on their rather large ad sign in London’s Piccadilly Circus via Twitter. Consumers are invited to follow Coke on the micro-blogging website and to then tweet a festive message to @cokezone.

The best of those messages will then be displayed on the Coke ad screen, which can be seen via a webcam on the drink firm’s website. Obviously messages are being vetted so to avoid offensive remarks or inevitable “I drink Pepsi” contributions. Those tweeters whose messages will be displayed in Piccadilly Circus will be tweeted back, with five minutes to get online to the webcam webpage to check it out.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: Unicorn Jobs’ sister company Taylor Bennett has founded a new charity to directly address the need for greater diversity in the communications and PR industry, and its launch was celebrated at an event at Unilever House in London on Tuesday, where Taylor Bennett director Heather McGregor and the charity’s first patron Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick CBE both outlined their ambitions for the new organsation. The Foundation will enable the expansion of the previously reported and, as I’m sure we’ve mentioned before, award winning PR training programme specifically aimed at black, Asian and minority ethnic graduates originally created by Taylor Bennett and Unicorn Jobs in 2008.

The aim of the initiative is to encourage talented graduates from ethnic minority communities to pursue a career in PR, and to provide them with the skills and knowledge they require to do so. Although no job is guaranteed at the end of the programme, ongoing careers support is provided and past alumni of the programme (six of whom are pictured on the left) have gone on to secure work experience, contracts and permanent positions at: Brunswick, Cantos, Cision, CNN, Edelman, Financial Dynamics, Ketchum, Macbeth Media Relations, Newham Council, Save The Children, Thames London Gateway, The Observer and The Olympic Legacy Company.

The internship programme has only been possible thanks to the support of numerous media, in-house communication teams and PR agencies. In particular each programme is sponsored by a ‘lead communications agency’ who provide both funding and direct training to participating interns. Since 2008 international corporate communications partnership Brunswick has supported four programmes. From 2011 Brunswick will continue to support two programmes a year, while consumer PR specialists Talk PR have come on board as a second lead partner. It is hoped that, through the creation of the Foundation, even more companies will be able to support this work and, in doing so, help foster a more diverse communications industry.

Commenting on the programme, Heather told esPResso: “We have already been fortunate to work closely with a number of universities, PR agencies, in-house communications teams and media owners to help find and equip talented graduates with the necessary skills to launch their communications careers. This initiative depends on great partnerships to help deliver our bold ambitions, and we are looking forward to expanding the number of partners through the creation of the Taylor Bennett Foundation. I am thrilled Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick has agreed to be the first patron of the charity, and thank him for his support of this programme”.

There is more information about the Foundation and how to support it at www.taylorbennettfoundation.org.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: So, who’s your favourite journalist to work with? Anyone? Well, assuming their are media people you enjoy communicating to, or whose work you respect, then you ought to get voting, because nominations are being accepted for this year’s CRAPPs, awards voted for by PR people that honour great journalists. Nominations can be made on their website – www.thecrapps.com – until the end of the month, after which shortlists will be announced and PR people will be encouraged to get back online to vote for the winners.

Talking of PR people bigging up journalists, the music PR community will be doing just that tonight at the Record Of The Day Music PR & Journalism Awards, which takes place at the Idea Generation Gallery in Shoreditch. But at this one, PR people can walk away with a prize too, because journalists get to vote for their favourite publicity and communications people. If you’re going, see you there!

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: Video-on-demand service SeeSaw is adding an Ad Selector to its service which enables users to decide which adverts they see before and during programmes. I think its about choosing which specific ads from a brand you see, rather than being able to stop any one brand from appearing altogether. A similar thing already operates on US online telly services, and SeeSaw’s ad man says it helps improve brand recall and increase purchase intent. So, there you go.

Here’s SeeSaw’s Head Of Advertising Ben Williams bigging it all up to Campaign magazine: “The Ad Selector puts the user in control of the advertising experience and therefore increases their engagement and purchase intent. Our vision is to create a unique environment for advertisers to reach their audience through innovative methods, and today’s announcement is the first step towards this, with more initiatives in the pipeline”.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: So this is fun. Digital Radio UK, a body charged with the task of persuading us all to buy a DAB digital radio set so that the government can start moving mainstream stations off the FM network in 2015, have made some TV commercials promoting all things digital which are due to air on both BBC and commercial TV and radio stations this Christmas.

But a load of commercial radio stations are refusing to air them. Some smaller commercial radio groups like UKRD oppose the rapid move to DAB by 2015, so were never likely to take part. But even bigger radio firms like Global and GMG Radio, who officially back the fast expansion of digital, are also boycotting the ads. It’s because the commercial radio sector want the BBC to commit more money to expanding the DAB network so the whole UK is definitely served before any move away from FM begins. They are annoyed such a commitment was not included in the Beeb’s recent licence fee deal with the government. And it seems that, until such a commitment is made, they won’t take part in any ‘go digital’ campaign.

UKRD boss William Rogers told reporters: “It is dishonest to persuade people to go and buy a radio that may not work. The BBC is using licence fee payers’ money to persuade people to pay to go and buy a radio that may not have signal in their area, and cannot receive all the radio stations their analogue radio can receive. I’m delighted other radio groups are bringing some honesty to this debate”.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: So, we’ve discussed the future of newspapers a few times here in esPResso. With many consumers still seemingly resistant to paying for access to newspaper websites, many in the industry reckon (or possibly desperately hope) that the future may be all about new-look iPad publications, specifically designed for use on tablet computers. It’s thought/hoped more people will be willing to pay to access such media.

And both Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch are about to put that theory to the test by launching new iPad-specific titles. Murdoch’s will be a news-based publication called The Daily, while the Virgin Group’s iPad mag will be more entertainment-focused.

The latter will be officially unveiled at a shindig in New York next week. It’s title is tbc, though it has previously been referred to by some as both Project and Maverick. Some experienced editors and journalists are on board for both projects. We’ll keep an eye on how they turn out.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: More Twitter, and LEWIS PR in the US has announced that its Chatterscope website, which monitors what is being said about companies on Twitter around the world, is now tracking over 800 brands in 15 countries.

LEWIS PR’s Director of Product Development Ian Lipner says: “Upon launch, beta users were immediately thrilled that they finally had a way to get at the emotion surrounding their brand on Twitter, but very soon, they wanted more features and capabilities. We worked quickly to deliver them while keeping the application totally free, and in doing so, doubled our user base in less than 90 days”.

His colleague Morgan McLintic, EVP at LEWIS, added: “Chatterscope, at its core, is about assuring the defining qualities of a brand are those that are heard loudest amid the din of social network chatter. At the same time, we feel it strongly reflects our own brand qualities. There’s no point saying you are innovative and involved in social media, unless you prove that through developing products and implementing campaigns”.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: New stats from the US-based PR intelligence service The Holmes Report reveal that Weber Shandwick was the world’s biggest PR firm in 2009, closely followed by Fleishman-Hillard and Edelman. Although The Holmes Report’s own analysts say the Top 3 isn’t what’s really interesting about their review of PR agency fee income figures for last year, and instead we should be looking at the company’s lower down the Top 10, some of which have jumped up the charts in the last year or so.

MS&L have gone top five as a result a restructure of parent company the Publicis Group in which some of its other PR businesses, including Freud Communications, became part of the MS&L Group. Likewise, the merger of Ketchum and Pleon, both owned by Omnicom, has put them into a higher position. And similarly, though outside the Top Ten, a restructure of the Huntsworth Group, and the merger of its Grayling, Trimedia and Mmd businesses, saw them shoot up the stats list, to number 12.

Though probably of more interest to those outside the PR businesses who got a rating worth bragging about, was the news that the size of the global PR industry (well, that which is trackable) shrunk in terms of revenue in 2009 as the impact of the 2008 recession hit. Total revenues were 7.5% down to $8 billion. Though one assumes at least equivalent growth will be seen when The Holmes Report assesses 2010’s figures in a year’s time.

CORPORATE COMMS NEWS BITE: The CIPR has criticised plans drawn up by the government’s Department For Communities & Local Government and it’s minister man Eric Pickles which proposes forcing local authorities to cut back on their communication activities, including producing their own publications and hiring PR agencies.

Pickles reckons that local councils spend way too much money telling the residents they service how great they are. He also sympathises with regional newspaper owners who argue that the growth in the number of councils publishing their own media is hitting their trade, partly because media-owning councils are less likely to advertise with other newspapers, and partly because some councils are directly competing by selling advertising in their own publications.

But the CIPR says Pickles’s plans are far too extreme, and may well mean local authorities fail in their duty to communicate with their local community. According to PR Week, the trade body’s Local Public Services Group says in its formal response to the government’s proposals: “There is a danger that the code as consulted upon loses sight of the duty to inform residents in this way, which could result in councils becoming more remote from their electorate”.

The CIPR also argues that one of the biggest drains on local councils’ marketing budgets is caused by a legal obligation to advertise all planning notices in local newspapers. This money, they argue, would be better spent on the kinds of comms activity Pickles is proposing to cut. But, needless to say, the aforementioned regional newspaper owners the minister is in part trying to placate would very much disagree with that viewpoint.

MARKETING COMMS NEWS BITE: A new think tank created by the Advertising Association has announced it will initially focus its attentions onto the impact advertising has on children and the ad industry’s contribution to the economy. The former, of course, has been an increasingly contentious subject in recent years with some consumer and parents groups calling for a ban on all advertising in and around media aimed at kids.

The new organisation, called Credos, picked topics to concentrate on after consulting politicians, NGOs and academics. Advertising Association Head Of Strategy Karen Fraser will oversee the new think tank organisation, and she has promised that the new body will be “an honest and critical friend” to the ad industry.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: A super injunction stopping the media from reporting that Take That-er Howard Donald has been battling to stop an ex-girlfriend from dishing the dirt on their relationship has been lifted, though an injunction stopping the dirt dishing itself is still in place. Donald’s legal people went to court to stop Adakini Ntuli from selling her story to the tabloids after she sent the Take That dancer a text message in April which read: “Why shud I continue 2 suffer financially 4 the sake of loyalty when selling my story will sort my life out?”

Employing the increasingly popular ‘super injunction’ system, Donald’s lawyers ensured that not only could the tabs not buy Ntuli’s kiss and tell story – even though she’d hired the services of Max Clifford to sell it – but no media could report on the fact the injunction was in place either. The injunctions were appealed, and earlier this week the Court Of Appeal lifted the super-injunction but kept the ban on Ntuli actually selling her story in place. It’s thought Donald had a fling with Ntuli while already in a relationship with two other women.

Donald’s people spun yesterday’s court ruling as a victory, telling reporters: “Howard Donald successfully obtained an injunction earlier this year against a former girlfriend who threatened to sell a story about the intimate details of their relationship to the press. He did this to protect his children from this kind of story and because he believes that what took place in private should remain private and not be exploited for financial gain. His former girlfriend appealed this decision. Howard is pleased therefore that this morning the Court of Appeal has upheld the injunction he won”.

Injunctions and super-injunctions are being used with increased frequency by both companies and celebrities with embarrassing secrets to hide, with a handful of legal firms now specialising in this kind of service. Though I’m of the opinion that, in these circumstances, you’re normally better off hiring a good PR and weathering the storm. Even super injunctions usually become public knowledge eventurally, and then everyone assumes you had a lot more to hide than you probably really did. If you can, communicate don’t sue, that’s always my mantra.

MEDIA NEWS BITE: The Sunday Telegraph will this weekend launch a new once-a-year special supplement called ST Watches & Jewellery, full of articles on and ads for, well, I think you can guess.

It’s the latest in a string of annual specials that have been launched by the Sunday paper, each based around high-end products such as fashion and design and interiors. The motivation for the publisher is presumably the extra ad sales each themed supplement attracts, though for PR people who keep in the loop regarding newly planned supplements they are also a great opportunity.

The special ST edition will be distributed with the paper this weekend in London and the South East. Presumably the Telegraph’s readers up North never need to know the time.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: So, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg announced a revamp of the messaging system within the uber-social network earlier this week. The announcement was rather overshadowed by The Beatles arriving on iTunes and then some Prince announcing his engagement, but it is possibly big news anyway.

Basically Facebook messaging, which currently lets one Facebook user send a message to another, will be revamped so to include elements of email. Facebook users will get @facebook.com email addresses so that people from outside the social network can send messages to those on the inside. Zuckerberg insisted this wasn’t just Facebook launching a Hotmail or Gmail type system, it was – he said – much cleverer and simpler than that. So simple, I don’t really understand what he was talking about. I guess I’ll have to wait until I get invited to opt-in to the extended messaging system, as all Facebook users will be at some point.

For companies who already have relationships with consumers via a Facebook page, the new messaging system will be worth checking out, as it may expand the ways in which the social network can be used as a communication channel, and maybe remove the need to have two online customer contact platforms – Facebook and email. Though it is probably the ad industry who are most interested in the latest Facebook development, because it may well mean that people start spending even more time within the Facebook website every day. Which makes it an even more attractive place to post ads.

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: This is brilliant. Speed Communications Steve Earl revealed last week how his company plans to ensure every single person that works there has a basic understanding of social media. Speed recognise that the social media revolution, which is arguably only now really gaining momentum, means that all PR people should have their head around the latest digital communication innovations, and that the only way to do that, really, is to actually use social media tools.

So, Steve writes: “On 2 December, we’re turning off email. All email, all day. And phones. All day. It’s a company-wide training day and we’re all being forced to use modern media alone to do PR. No making calls, no sending emails, just using the web. We’ve got some outside experts in to talk about the latest interesting stuff going on in search, video content and journalism. Then we’ll be doing a pretend client exercise. After lunch is a PR exercise with the sole purpose of generating commercial returns for Speed by using social media”.

He continues: “Why do this? To force people to bathe in social media, in a nice way. To open all eyes to it and drive experimentation. We’ve spent two years here training the whole team so that everyone has skills in both conventional and social media, avoiding a digital ghetto. But we can go further, and this is an interesting way of doing so”.