There has been a media flurry this morning.  The FT went to press with a front page story claiming ‘Brown to be star of the show on Downing Street web TV channel’. 

According to a spokesperson in the FT ‘The new online channel, accessible via the Downing Street website, will offer exclusive video of the prime minister’s speeches, press conferences, media appearances and news archives'

The announcement caused a little confusion this morning as Downing Street was initially keen to play down the ‘Web TV Channel’ badge.

Either way, this adds a little heat to an online battle that Cameron as been quietly winning hands-down for two years now, thanks to his rather well established weblog. 

Despite the launch of his YouTube channel in April/May which encouraged the public to ask Brown a question, he has been playing catch-up in the online webTV arena, so this development can only be a good thing.

Of course, like many things, we’re light years behind the US where both presidential candidates have established webTV channels; Obama and McCain are waging an online video war, which makes for fascinating viewing even from this side of the pond. 

An amusing aside, one of the first UK politicians to engage with her audience via the web, was staunch right-wing conservative Ann Widdecombe who’s Widdyweb, was mentioned in a rather toe-curling Louis Theroux show some years ago.

In the last week both the BBC and Channel 4 have announced their latest forays into multi-platform TV.  Not surprisingly both have decided to target the ‘yoof’ market to test their propositions.

Hollyoaks  ‘show within a show’ idea will see characters talking about, and watching a drama show called Runners.   Runners will be about life working as an intern in the showbiz and fashion industries and will include sequences shot at events such as the Brit Awards.  Thanks to Broadcast for the info.

As well as brief clips of Runners appearing in the soap, Hollyoaks fans will be able to watch a full three-minute online episode each weekday for the 10-week initial run. Episodes are planned to appear on C4's Hollyoaks website as well as on Bebo, MSN Messenger TV, Facebook and iTunes.

The BBC’s working title “‘Mouth to Mouth’ is a cautionary tale, following the highs and lows of the three members of girl-group Cat's Eyes through individual monologues.”  The programme will be made available across selected web and mobile platforms prior to transmission on BBC 3.  An un-specified amount of additional content will also be exclusively available online to “expand the narrative”.

This is all well and good, but as the BBC wisely points out

"BBC Three is committed to producing a steady stream of innovative and creative multi-platform projects.  The latest of these, Mouth to Mouth, is all about powerful writing and great acting talent. The essentials of quality content are not going to change, whatever the platform."

This advice is totally correct and I really hope they both get it right.

I find it staggering that text messaging in this country continues to grow and yet that’s exactly what keeps happening.  In their most recent report the Mobile Data Association shows that texting has grown by 30% in the year to May 2008.  Despite the growth of mobile email we’re now sending an amazing 212,616,000 text messages per day.

MDA are also pleased to report that mobile web is maturing finally in fact; it has enjoyed 25% growth over the last two years.  Over 16.5 million of us now partake of mobile internet and Steve Reynolds of MDA predicts that before long, mobile internet use could eventually supersede home internet use.   Their next report will outline the impact 3g dongles are having, which in my opinion will play a bigger role in online mobile growth than any new iPhone.

The quarterly RAJAR figures have been released for Q2 2008, and in the latest round of the ratings battle the BBC have taken a slight dip.  Chris Moyles and breakfast godfather Wogan both lost listeners.  BBC local stations also lost share in the last quarter with BBC Solent, Jersey, Three Counties and Kent amongst a long list of those reporting woes.

Conversely commercial radio stations achieved a great set of results.  In London Neil Fox’s breakfast took the sought after top spot for Magic's breakfast show.  Elsewhere Island FM and The Bee posted impressive share increases.

Overall the picture for radio is good, and digital continues to notch up total share of listenership, up a tiny 0.1% in the last quarter.  The number of people listening on mobile phone is up by 3.3%, the biggest quarterly jump to date.

With the likes of Kiss 100 announcing content will be available on the new iPhone, this is set to continue.   But I’m confused, surely listening to a show on a 3g mobile makes me an online listener?

In the forthcoming issue of our newsletter Onward (coming in the next few weeks, sign up here for a free copy) we feature an article about the power of research and how a local bias will help gain extensive radio coverage. 

Our thinking is backed up by Radio Centre’s latest survey which has some pretty impressive statistics about the impact of radio news.

On average, local radio stations transmit 20 news bulletins of around 3 minutes each day.  69% of all radio news bulletins contain local news stories. What’s more 93% of stations are transmitting content live online.

To give you an idea of sheer scale of the opportunity the survey reminds us that 347 UK Commercial Radio stations attract a weekly audience of 31 million adults, who listen for over 424 million hours each week.  That’s about half of the total UK population.

Download a pdf of the full survey here.