City Moves | Who’s switching jobs December 9, 2012 Old Burlington Investments Noreen Kelly has been appointed business development manager at the investment business. She was previously a relationship manager at Octopus Investment Management. In her new role, Kelly will market Old Burlington’s funds to financial advisers. Sainsbury’s Angie Risley has been appointed group human resources director at the supermarket. She was most recently [...]
Newspaper bosses find accord on regulation without the state December 5, 2012 NEWSPAPER editors yesterday reached a broad agreement over new systems of press regulation, agreeing to many of Lord Justice Leveson’s proposals but ruling out any state interference. At a breakfast meeting in central London yesterday, Fleet Street bosses signed up to the majority of the Leveson report’s recommendations, including a revamped system of complaints and [...]
Treasury expecting £3.5bn 4G auction windfall December 5, 2012 THE GOVERNMENT expects to raise £3.5bn from next year’s auction of the mobile airwaves needed to run high-speed 4G services, George Osborne said yesterday. The windfall will boost the Treasury’s coffers, and will flatter this year’s deficit figure, but will be far less than the £22.5bn raised in 2000’s 3G auction. In fact, the £3.5bn [...]
Sky comes out on top in survey December 4, 2012 Sky has come ahead of rivals BT and Virgin Media in a consumer satisfaction survey conducted by Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator. The company was voted best in the landline, broadband, and pay-TV categories. In a survey of mobile networks, O2 came far ahead of the competition, followed by Three and T-Mobile, then Orange. Vodafone was [...]
Happy Bday SMS! Txts turn 20 2day but less msgs being sent December 2, 2012 TWENTY years ago today the first text message – “Merry Christmas” – was sent. The greeting was sent by Neil Papworth, an engineer working for Sema Group in the UK and a member of a team developing SMS software for Vodafone. Today, upwards of seven trillion text messages are sent every year, more than 200,000 [...]
Battle begins over future of the press November 29, 2012 THE BATTLE lines for a parliamentary row over press freedom were drawn yesterday, after David Cameron rejected the central recommendation of the Leveson inquiry and said he had “serious concerns” about introducing legislation to support press regulation. The combative stance was welcomed by the newspaper industry but means Cameron will now be pitted in a [...]
Why David Cameron was right to stand up for free speech November 29, 2012 YESTERDAY wasn’t quite the tragic day for the freedom of the press that it could have been, for one reason only: at one minute to midnight, David Cameron came riding to the rescue of free speech. By refusing to back the Leveson report’s key demand – a new regulator underpinned by statute and ultimately policed [...]
Critics hit out at Leveson’s plans for press November 29, 2012 BUSINESS leaders and industry bodies warned against government interference in the press yesterday, and urged the newspaper industry to take the initiative in creating a new regulatory framework. Shares in paper owners News Corp, Daily Mail & General Trust, and Johnston Press also rose following Lord Justice Leveson’s report despite worries over state regulation, signalling [...]
Leveson is wrong – regulation is not the answer to every problem November 29, 2012 THE two scandals which gave rise to the Leveson Inquiry were phone hacking and bribing the police. Both are already crimes. The scandal was failure to enforce the law. Yet Leveson baldly dismisses these issues – asserting without evidence that “more rigorous application of the criminal law does not and will not provide the solution”. [...]
Ireland shows why press controls are not the solution November 29, 2012 LORD Justice Leveson met his deadline yesterday, issuing the findings of his eight month inquiry into the “culture, practices, and ethics” of the press. It came as no surprise that he concluded the state has a role to play in overseeing newspapers. Leveson decided that a statutory body, much like Ofcom, should take responsibility for [...]