Fairy-tale romances used to involve blushing brides and charming princes. Today’s ideal is messier but, as Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil have shown, still potent The Independent. 02 June 2007 Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes it most certainly is not. When the singer Amy Winehouse, 23, and the “music video assistant” Blake Fielder-Civil, 25, exchanged…
Programme’s terminally ill patient was an actor. Dutch stunt praised by media commentators . The Guardian Saturday June 2, 2007 It was decried as the show that would break the reality TV format’s back. The makers of the Dutch De Grote Donorshow (The Big Donor Show) promised a one-off programme in which a terminally ill…
PROFILE: Andy Coulson: David Cameron believes he has pulled off another dazzling coup in appointing Andy Coulson, the street-smart former editor of the News of the World, as the Tories’ director of communications. Sceptics wonder if it is a stunt that will backfire like Cameron’s bicycle. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1875732.ece
I was approached late yesterday afternoon by a contestant on this year’s Big Brother – civilians that is, not celebrities. I cannot even remember which series this is; it has been going for so long. After all the race row shenanigans, I hope the new series has a change of zest; its reputation is finely…
In today’s competitive society, where anyone can get their fifteen minutes of fame, everyone has their price. Large bags of cash to buy opinion are likely to turn “gamekeepers into poachers” as we see today in the case of Alan Milburn. Of course PepsiCo UK would want to get Alan Milburn, the former health secretary,…
A recent interview I gave for “Programme Notes: Case Studies for locating experimental theatre” about the role of marketing in growing audiences for experimental theatre.
We continue to see the heroic efforts made by the McCann’s to keep up Maddie’s public profile, so their daughter’s disappearance doesn’t fade into obscurity. Undoubtedly, the “cute” factor helps to perpetuate her media presence and without it, I fear she wouldn’t have so much attention. Maddie is cute and very photogenic which always helps…
by FERGUS SHEPHERD It was launched at the end of 1960, and one reviewer dismissed it for “its dreary signature tune and grim scenes of a row of terraced houses and smoking chimneys”. But Coronation Street, the world’s longest-running television soap opera, which gave the world Ena Sharples, the Rover’s Return and Ken Barlow, has again…
There is still no news of the missing toddler Maddy McCann. Here is an extract from BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast. I comment on the success of the campaign to date and the pressures that it will face over the coming weeks, as the media loose interest.
I am often sent PR disaster tales this one from New Zealand, underlines the danger of staging a stunt without realising the risks. I am sure that it was a great success on the day, alas there is usually a huge hangover after the best party. The Warehouse, New Zealand’s largest general merchandise retailer, says it…