The CEO of Tribune Co in the US Randy Michaels is a man after my own heart, he has issued a list of 119 words and phrases which must never be uttered by reporters on his talk radio station (hat-tip Stephen Brook). These include: “lending a helping hand”, “mother of all anything” and “lucky to be [...]

• Aga saga took sad turn as recession hit demand • But company says sales of upmarket cookers are hotting up Aga Rangemaster has seen its annual profits almost wiped out after a sharp drop in demand for its traditional cast iron stoves at the height of the recession. Profits plummeted to £500,000 from £14.4m the previous year, while revenues fell to £245m from £279m. Stripping out one-off costs, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation halved to £12.6m. Not surprisingly,..   show all text

British Airways cabin crew to hold two weekend walkouts in March over staff cuts, Unite says • How would the strike affect you? British Airways cabin crew will stage a series of strikes over two consecutive weekends this month, beginning with a three-day walkout on 20 March and followed by a four-day action from 27 March. The first strikes by BA cabin crew in nearly 13 years have been called by the Unite trade union after a breakdown in talks over staffing cuts. The industrial action by 12,..   show all text

By Rich Baker As a thank you to the people who registered their interest at my pre-launch site all email addresses have been entered into a draw to win £30 Amazon eVouchers. Using a random number generator the chosen number in the chronological list was.. 18 The 18th person to sign up was… Andy Laird! Congrats Andy – the voucher is winging its way over to you now! Now, if I can only remember what your twitter name is I can let you know! A new competition next week!

The annual cheese-rolling event at Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire is cancelled due to concerns about crowd safety.

BSkyB shares have moved sharply higher as speculation went round the market that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation was considering taking the satellite broadcaster private. It climbed as high as 597.5p before slipping back to 583.5p as traders cast doubt on the tale. This is still a 14p or 2.46% gain on the day so far, however, and more than 8m shares have changed hands so far, compared to a recent average of around 4m for the whole day. The story causing all the excitement was that News Cor..   show all text

Recently I heard someone claiming that swinging voters often don't make their decision after considering all the facts. Many make their choice based on a single issue that they remember in the run up to the election. They can be the smallest of things too. For me, the most memorable thing in the run up to the last election was Tony Blair being wrongfooted on Question Time by a lady in the the audience. She pointed out to the then-PM that it was impossible to book an appointment with her GP ..   show all text

Facebook claims that it "maintains a robust reporting infrastructure that leverages our hundreds of millions of users to look for offensive or potentially dangerous content." But I've discovered that this is rubbish. Its methods for reporting inappropriate content are confusing, flawed or missing. Problems I've uncovered include: Content that's impossible to flag. There's no way to explain why content is inappropriate, which means Facebook has to work out itself (as you'll see from the exa..   show all text

In a society portrayed by the Daily Mail as one polluted with tax dodging benefit cheats and sponging immigrants, it seems strange the paper would dedicate a page in today's paper to an attack on a middle-class white man who stands accused of doing his job (right). OK, so he works in PR and we all know that makes him evil to core, but I can't really work out what's happened to mean the mechanism of the news has become the story. Would the Daily Mail be happier without PR people in the world? ..   show all text

Labour peer Baroness Uddin will not face charges over her expenses, the Crown Prosecution Service has said.

Team Cameron's move into the Millbank CCHQ for the General Election campaign is now complete. The 'war room' has become a crowded place with staffers bunched up closely together. It's warm. It's noisy. Cameron, himself, retreats to Parliament when he needs to finish a big speech or statement. Steve Hilton, Director of Strategy, and Andy Coulson, Director of Communications, are now sharing an office at the heart of operations. The two men have taken over the third floor's last available meetin..   show all text

In a move that could change the way sports are broadcast via the internet, YouTube will be streaming full coverage of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament starting in just under five hours. Internet search giant Google had secured full internet broadcast rights for all 60 Indian Premier League cricket matches spanning 43 days, streaming every minute of the action to audiences worldwide. The Indian Premier League has fast become of the world’s most popular sports, showcasing the ..   show all text

Former US President George W Bush's advisor, Karl Rove, says he is proud of waterboarding as he believes it prevented attacks.

Tomorrow's YouGov daily tracker poll for The Sun has the Conservative figure unchanged but Labour creeping upwards. The numbers are: Conservatives - 37% (no change) Labour - 34% (+2) Liberal Democrats - 17% (no change) We are also expecting the latest AngusReid poll for Political Betting tonight. 10.15pm update: The Angus Reid poll has just been posted on Political Betting and shows the Tory lead increasing to 13%, as compared with a 12% lead in the equivalent poll published in mid-February: C..   show all text

TV coverage restricted to single highlights show, with possible extras on red button, due to 'budget restrictions and time zone' The BBC has been criticised for scheduling just one hour of TV highlights of the Vancouver Winter Paralympics, despite dedicating 160 broadcast hours to the Winter Olympics on BBC2. Lewis Wiltshire, the editor of the BBC Sport website, said TV coverage was restricted because of "budget restrictions and the time zone factor". The Winter Paralympics, which start toda..   show all text

Another week, another Media Talk. Matt Wells is joined by Stephen Brook and Steve Ackerman to discuss brand extensions and digital spin-offs as the BBC plans to offer a sweetener for culling 6 Music by repackaging its DAB radio offering. What is Tim Davie up to? Also in the podcast, we bring you the latest on Alexander Lebedev's purchase of the Independent. As Noel Edmonds might say, deal or no deal? Plus, Charles Allen's got himself a new job – EMI: you have been warned – and we have all the ..   show all text

Iron Maiden frontman could move from BBC 6 Music to loss-making digital radio station owned by Malcolm Bluemel Planet Rock owner Malcolm Bluemel wants to hire outgoing BBC 6 Music DJ Bruce Dickinson – and hopes his loss-making digital station will break even by the end of this year. He has held talks with the Iron Maiden frontman, who will present his last 6 Music show in April after eight years on the BBC digital station. 6 Music is set to close at the end of 2011 under controversial propos..   show all text

On November 19th, 2006, Nintendo launched its fifth home console to the world. The Nintendo Wii was both ridiculed and praised for its unique controller system — the Wiimote — which detects movements in three dimensions. Three and a half years later, the Wii has dominated the market, shattered sales records, and put its two main rivals, Microsoft and Sony, on the defensive. Both companies are responding with motion-based controllers of their own though. Microsoft has generated some big buz..   show all text

If you’re a gamer, you might have heard about yesterday’s news about the PlayStation Move, Sony’s answer to the Wii Remote and Microsoft’s upcoming Project Natal motion controller. In a demonstration yesterday, the company showed off the device, which utilizes remote-like controllers and the PlayStation Eye camera to capture your movements and turn them into actions on the screen. We’ve seen plenty of screenshots and heard a lot about the controller’s capabilities, but we wanted to find ou..   show all text