The ghost of Barnum is stalking TV land, as a new show displaying the dark and slightly freakish side of celebrity seems to be proving: Living TV’s Rehab. And some less-than-A list celebrities are queuing up to take part. One, who was turned down, was apparently eager to get on the show and discuss their…
Listening to Mark Thompson on this morning’s Today programme, justifying the corporation’s decision not to allow the broadcast of an appeal on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee for Gaza, I was distressed. The thrust of his argument was that he didn’t want the BBC’s impartiality being damaged. I am not sure about the semantics…
There’s a short review of The Fame Formula in the Financial Times on 23rd January. Stephen Cave also discusses Fame by Mark Rowlands and The Star as Icon: Celebrity in the Age of Mass Consumption by Daniel Herwitz. “It’s these myths [of the iconic early Hollywood stars] that are exploded by Mark Borkowski in his jolly romp…
Gordon Ramsay’s given up his flak-managing flack Gary Farrow as part of a series of moves that see him scaling down his spending and financially restructuring his massive empire under the management of his father-in-law, Chris Hutcheson. This may come as something of a blow for Farrow in these recessionary times; his skill with crisis…
When über-chef Heston Blumenthal III was asked to wave his magic wooden spoon over the roadside diner Little Chef, I raised my eyes to the gods. ‘What a gift for the production company,’ I thought. ‘Brilliant fly-on-the-wall telly at the expense of a tired old brand; we’ll be chuckling all the way to bed.’ How…
British Olympic gold medallist Rebecca Adlington will be announced as the new face of swimwear brand Speedo on Thursday, according to the Telegraph. Adlington will join Michael Phelps, who won a world record eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as Speedo’s official face of the world’s biggest swimwear brand. Phelps has been sponsored by…
All publicity is good publicity, the cliché tells us. In fact the cliché jumps up and down and insists that this is so and has been known to stamp its foot if anyone disagrees, as news from St. Lucia proves. The Caribbean island, as any celebrity-watcher should be able to tell you, is the latest…
A new year, a new American President, a new sense of austerity and asperity pervading the world and yet still no sign that sections of the PR world are little more than spam-merchants, pumping out press releases at the mill without any thought or caution, any sense of building the brand. Press releases promoting all…
Femail Magazine January 15th 2009 Rachel Porter asked a panel of experts to give their waspish views on Cheryl Cole, Dannii Minogue, Kelly Brook and Amanda Holden, on which of the four should be crowned the queen of reality TV. Mark Borkowski, PR guru and author of the Fame Formula, a history of the Hollywood…
That is the risk Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King seems prepared to take after leading his supermarket through the economic storm to record its best Christmas ever while most rivals struggled. With King tipped to return to his old stomping ground of Marks & Spencer to replace outgoing Sir Stuart Rose as chief executive, the…