大象传媒

For anyone whose programme offers 'interactivity' - and that is almost everyone blogging on this site, I suspect - a clip of a Mitchell and Webb sketch that is doing the rounds has caused much interest and amusement.

The sketch is very funny. It is also a bit painful. Here are a couple of examples.

"Are you personally affected by this issue? Then e-mail us. Or if you鈥檙e not affected by this issue can you imagine what it would be like if you were? Or if you are affected by it but don鈥檛 want to talk about it can you imagine what it would be like not being affected by it? Why not e-mail us?"

鈥淵ou may not know anything about the issue, but I bet you reckon something. So why not tell us what you reckon. Let us enjoy the full majesty of your uninformed ad hoc reckon, by going to bbc.co.uk鈥� clicking on 鈥榳hat I reckon鈥� and then simply beating on the keyboard with your fists or head.鈥�

Interactivity offers viewers, or in this case listeners, the chance to participate and it offers us the opportunity to engage with those consuming our product. If that sounds like claptrap, then you are probably someone who does not wish to 'participate' or have us 'engage' with you.

Come to think of it, if that is you, then you are very unlikely to be reading an editor's blog.

At its best interactivity connects us with viewers, or listeners, sometimes directly influencing our editorial agenda. There are numerous stories that have been told (across TV and radio or online) that would simply not have made it to the surface were it not for interactivity.

That said, I am not pretending it is always so.
E-mails or texts being read out can be very tedious indeed. Sid in Stevenage probably doesn't give a stuff what Maureen in Manchester thinks about something.

That's why, at Breakfast, we've tried to steer our interactivity away from mere 'opinion' and more towards 'experience' or 'anecdote'. It's just more interesting that way.

Opinion does still get read out when it's especially interesting or insightful, but experience generally wins the day. The other thing that works well is questions from viewers. On a number of occasions, it has led us towards a line of questioning we might not otherwise have pursued.

What does not work is using interactive responses to fill holes in a programme in a "鈥ow then, err, let's turn to your e-mails and texts while we try to re-establish that link" sort of way. We have been guilty of this. Viewers and listeners are not stupid - they generally know if we are filling.

The other thing that doesn't work is looking, or sounding, desperate. This is what Mitchell and Webb so deliciously capture - a sense of "please tell us, please e-mail, please call.. About anything".

I'd recommend a listen to the clip. I shall certainly be sharing it with my team...

As Kate Moss's collection hit Topshop this morning, we found ourselves on the rack for covering it.

Shoppers queued through the night to catch a glimpse of her new range, but the overwhelming majority of our viewers (those who got in touch) seemed to suggest it was a non-story:

"Congratulations on your marketing efforts on behalf of Kate Moss. Each time you mention her name a wave of apathy runs around our household", said one viewer. "Philip Green must be laughing all the way to the bank" said another. While "Look at those lemmings piling into that shop" was how someone else summed it up.
So why did we feature it? And why did we feel we needed to mention it on two consecutive days?

The first question is easier than the second.

Love her or loathe her, Kate Moss is a modern icon. Just look at the level of press coverage she generates.

Topshop - a privately-owned company and a big employer - have taken a commercial decision to involve her in their design process, just as other retailers have done with the likes of Madonna and Lilly Allen. That, in itself, is an interesting shift in fashion retailing.

There's also the issue of modern consumer behaviour. Witness the scenes at Primark's Oxford Street launch.

Is it 'a story'? Well, it's all about popular culture and - as I have said before on this blog - news content needs to include popular culture if it's to retain its relevance.

But why did we do it twice? This is a trickier one for me. We focussed on the launch, in a preview piece yesterday, because we thought it would be odd not to look ahead to one of the biggest retail launches of the year. Our package included an element of critical review, from a fashion writer, in order to make it feel like a proper piece of objective reportage.

This morning, it would have seemed odd not to be there for the opening of the doors, so our reporter Susannah Streeter was live in the queue. Keeping a sense of critical review, amid the excitement outside the store, was tougher. However, we included voxpops from a couple of shoppers who were somewhat underwhelmed by the offer.

Among the criticisms this morning, a few of our viewers pointed out that there are many young British designers struggling for recognition. Why don't we feature them? The answer, of course, is that they are 'not Kate Moss'. But I must admit that those comments did set us thinking about how we might tell that 'story' too.

Last month on Breakfast, we asked people watching at home to get in touch if they were interested in being part of our 'Audience Panel'.

I'm not quite sure what we expected, but we were surprised by the level of response. More than three thousand people emailed us, to say they'd like to take part. Yes, when you consider that five million people watch Breakfast every day, then it's a small percentage of our viewers. But we're absolutely delighted that it's aroused the interest that it has.

We've spent the last four weeks going through those expressions of interest, trying to select a panel that's as representative as possible of our audience demographic. This has been tricky because we haven't really asked for that much detail from our viewers. It's basically been name, age, location and profession. That said, what we're setting out to achieve here is not precise market research, but has much more to do with identifying the things that work for our audience.

We've already had some initial feedback on the programme from those three thousand people who responded. Perhaps unsurprisingly (as they are already Breakfast viewers), most were generally positive (and sometimes very kind) about what they watch every morning. Most value their news briefing, many want the programme to feel "warm" or "friendly", there was particular praise for Declan's ability to communicate some of the complexities around business and finance, there was a desire to understand what stories mean "for me" and there was an appetite for international stories and perspectives.

The next step, having decided on our panel, is to send out our first batch of questions. We're working on them right now, but we intend to have a couple of programme specific questions and at least one supplementary enquiry pegged to an 'issue' of some kind.

There are two real tests for us. One is making sure that we don't annoy those people who have agreed to be on our panel. The second is making it all mean something. If we can't prove that we have responded to some thing or some theme that has emerged from the Panel, then we will have failed.

It's what we call a 'hardy annual'.

Every year, we cover the results of the Academy Awards, live from LA. Every year, it draws strong audience figures, yet appears to divide our audience.

This year was no different.

On the plus side, we had good figures on Monday. Kate Silverton's interview with Dame Helen Mirren (watch it here), live from the red carpet at the Vanity Fair party, was rebroadcast across the day and was also one of the most downloaded bits of video on the 大象传媒 News website. We had a big email and text response from viewers who really appreciated the live interviews, which also included James McAvoy, Michael Sheen, Kate Winslett, Sam Mendes and Beyonce.

Others felt we had gone over the top, complaining that there was "too much Oscar coverage" and fearing that "licence fee money is being wasted".

I've responded to a few of those who emailed to complain, but thought I ought to blog about it as well.

Firstly, is it 'news'? I say yes.

Dame Helen Mirren is a household name here in Britain, but to win in the coveted 'Best Actress' category in America has to rank as a very significant achievement. The film industry is important to the economy of course, but above all I think it's about covering popular culture. If you were to strip popular culture out of news, you'd end up with something that bears little relation to peoples' lives. And, of course, we still covered the rest of the news, as on any day.

Did we do too much? Probably. But it's an event that is happening as we are on air and we know from all our research that viewers like to see live coverage, even if it's a bit rough and ready, of live events. Interviews with stars of the calibre seen on that red carpet are very rare, so it presents a great opportunity for us.

Why did we send Kate? Another question that was asked more than once. We always send a Breakfast reporter to the Oscars. This year, we sent Kate instead. She was effectively there as our reporter, with the added advantage that she could 'co-present' the programme. She worked tirelessly - with live inserts last Thursday, Friday and Saturday, as well as on Monday morning. The 'sit down' interviews she conducted included Clint Eastwood and Dame Helen, along with Cate Blanchet, Ralf Little and even the throaty voiceover man who does most of those Hollywood film trailers. She also presented a special for 大象传媒 News 24.

Her dress? It was borrowed, as we made a point of saying on a number of occasions. Most of those who got in touch absolutely loved it, although some people missed seeing her wearing her trademark specs.

Will we do it again next year? Certainly. And will some people complain?...

It's a hardy annual.

Declan's kicked off what's to be a year-long series for us this morning, introducing us to our Breakfast .

The idea has nothing to do with chips - and everything to do with emissions.

We have challenged the family, the Hawksworths who live in Castle Donington, to see if they can reduce their emissions (they got in touch when just before Christmas).

We'll return once a month to see how they get on and also, more importantly to explore some of the issues around climate change and global warming.

We had some encouraging this morning - and a lot of interest in our carbon footprint feature.

But it's fair to say we also had some scepticism around the science of global warming, with a few people getting in touch to dispute whether it is really a serious issue.

On the science, we have pledged to explore those questions, with the Hawksworths helping put the questions.

Others felt that it was unfair to single out a family for our 'low carb' challenge - we should be "going after big business" instead.

My answer to that final point is that we do - and will continue to - question businesses on their environmental credentials.

Last week, we challenged the boss of Marks and Spencer, Stuart Rose, on the issue of food miles.

Declan frequently puts similar questions to the CEOs and chairmen who visit his studio.

Finally, some got in touch wondering why we cover so many stories relating to the environment, CO2 emissions and recycling.

"Frankly I am sick of listening to Breakfast going on and on about green issues", was one such comment.

Maybe we do too much of it? And we must certainly think about the sheer volume of such stories we cover. But we get an enormous response every time we do.

Heading home last night, I felt guilty about two things.

Having read all the comments in response to my blog, I'd chosen to ignore the postings about the irritation felt by some of our viewers about presenters 'chatting'.

This theme crops up from time to time. So what I should really have said is that I make no apology for it. It's about tone, it's about us feeling 'real' in the morning, rather than feeling 'sterile' (which used to be a regular complaint). I'm sorry if it irritates, but I think it's key to the warmth of our show. I suspect this is a hornet's nest, which is why I chose not to address it yesterday. But that was probably a mistake, so there you go.

The second thing? I was accused of 'announcing' our decision to go early with decorations, rather than blogging for opinion. This is probably a fair point, but we were responding to the sheer number of e-mails and texts we'd already received to the programme site.

Anyway, I feel better now.

PS: I have received a bauble from the editor of GMTV, who tells me it was left over from his grotto. This is very kind of him, but I would have preferred some of the money he chucks at his viewers each morning to persuade them to watch.

I feel much better now.

It's interesting, following my blog yesterday, that various people I know have now contacted me to ask what on earth I am doing listening to viewers and sticking up the tinsel (no, seriously, it'll look better than that) early.

"Have you gone stark staring mad?" was one such response. "Christmas starts far too early as it is."

One viewer asked us this morning whether we were being ? This concern was touching, but I'm happy to say that if we're being bullied by anyone, it's by our viewers (we'd already announced the change of plan, on this blog, before the papers wrote about it).

For those who hate Christmas decorations, then at least give ours a try - they will be extremely tasteful.

And for those who still hate them, then a red button development could perhaps one day present the answer...

It's Christmas - official.

This week our breakfast rivals stuck up their festive decorations, tree and all. Their studio now resembles some kind of grotto.

We don't generally watch our rivals that nervously, because we do generally aim to be different in the morning.

But, many of our viewers flick between the two shows - and they are currently demanding to know where our decorations are.

Problem. Our decorations are all planned (the design process takes a while), but they weren't due to go up until Monday 18th December. The thought of holding out another ten days is too much to bear. We've changed our minds - the decorations will go up this Monday instead.

This, I guess, represents a victory for the viewer. Some of our emailers and texters were polite - "would it be possible to have decorations please?", some were concerned - "why is there no tree? Is this political correctness?" and some forgot about the season of goodwill in their choice of words.

There are plenty of people who think Christmas starts far too early, of course. This morning we heard some top drawer humbug from one of the creators of 'Grumpy old men'.

So when is the correct day to put up your decorations please...?

How times change. There now follows a sort of apology. An apology for NOT using a swear word.

This morning the leader of the Conservative Party joined us on the Breakfast sofa, ostensibly to talk about poverty. After about four minutes talking about how to define, and how potentially to help, those "less fortunate" the conversation turned to other matters (you can see for yourself by clicking here).

When we're joined by a political leader, we often move the conversation on to talk about other pertinent issues and this morning was no exception. But this morning felt a bit different. This morning we wanted to talk about tossers.

David Cameron had been invited on to talk about poverty, so were we being fair asking him about the Tories' latest stab at "viral marketing". Of course we were. Mr Cameron made no complaint about it and my boss - the head of TV news, Peter Horrocks, was positively delighted.

However, there was some soul searching afterwards about whether we'd tackled it the right way. You see we didn't actually use the word "tosser". We skirted around it, fearing that it was too rude for a breakfast audience. We're a family programme and we're closer to the end of the watershed than to the start of it. We had a swearing episode a year ago; admittedly involving a word that begins with F and is much worse than tosser. That caused a huge stink, led to one of my more embarrassing Newswatch performances and went all the way to Ofcom, who fortunately didn't uphold the complaint.

So we're probably a bit nervy about bad words. But should we be? The boss's point is that if the naughty word is Mr Cameron's then it is he, not us, who are open to the charge of coarsening the debate. Who are we to censor that debate?

This approach surprised some of the production team, who feel that talking about tossers at ten to eight might be a step too far for the Breakfast audience, regardless of who is choosing to use the word. I suspect the very fact that the Conservative Party thinks it's acceptable to engage in a debate about whether someone is being a tosser means the opposition party may have moved on a little faster than we have.

Next time, we won't be so careful...

It's that time of the year again. The 大象传媒's newsreaders jettison their double-breasted suits and power jackets and don something sparkling instead to show us a side of them we rarely (well, annually) get to see.

And if you don't like it, it's all in the name of charity, so you can shut up.

Well, that might be the traditional view. But of course, there are plenty of people who do feel uncomfortable, or worse and who find their toes curling at the sight of such frivolity.

And this is a forum to air such issues.

Surely, the news is the news? And the newsreader should be the newsreader? Ends. That's certainly a view expressed to me on many occasions and it's a view that's almost certainly shared by some in this building too (including, I suspect a number of our presenters).

So are we right to do it? Of course, I have an opinion. But before we get to that, let's look at the defence.

Children in Need has raised more than 拢400m for good causes since its creation. It seems to break its own record every year, raising ever greater sums. It brings people together in the name of fundraising, helping, in turn (and this bit will irritate some readers) the 大象传媒 to fulfil its role as a force for good in society.

I defy anyone to watch the piece we broadcast this morning about the little girl with Down's Syndrome who attends a voluntary group funded by Children in Need and not think that it is all worthwhile.

That said, do newsreaders really need to dress up as James Bond characters to make all of this happen?

Well, I would argue that as we're in the business of communication, yes they do. To communicate effectively, we have to look like we're fellow multi-dimensional human beings and this is a great opportunity, in the name of a good cause, to do that.

Have there been 'sketches' in the past that I thought misfired? Yes. Were they embarrassing? Certainly. But is there really any harm done? I don't think so.

In the Telegraph last week, her irritation at our newsreaders' antics. She said...

"All we ask of these people is that they form proper sentences, speak in a clear voice and let us know what is going on in the world. It's so simple! Look at autocue, mouth words, then go home, please. Our relationship is over".

Many people will probably agree with her, but I don鈥檛. If we replaced our presenters with the kind of person she describes above, we'd fail to communicate effectively to our audience. News presentation needs to be about so much more than the reading of words. It's about comprehension, tone, empathy, having a hinterland and a whole lot more.

And tonight, we'll see a whole lot more than the usual whole lot more. It may make you laugh, it may make you squirm. It won't land Bill Turnbull a job as the new Bond. But it will help raise lots of money for a good cause. And it is only one night of the year...

I'm in Istanbul (at the ) getting to grips with the global agenda and, right now, the Turkish keyboard configuration. Both are challenging.

There's a small group of us here from the 大象传媒. Well, okay, not that small. But it's at these kind of events you realise just how enormous the 大象传媒's news operation is and just how varied is its agenda.

Our domestic television output is represented, radio too, then of course there's and World Service radio. There's also a big safety focus to this event, with the people who specialise in keeping journalists and crews out of harm sharing their experience and knowledge. The morning session ended with a grim roll call of those who have died in the name of journalism within the last year - almost two hundred.

The day had two really big themes I suppose - war and terrorism.

The keynote speaker was , UN Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, a man who speaks his mind. He told us how much he wished we'd be more consistent in our approach to war and disaster. He said that coverage of global catastrophes was like "a lottery", with some getting a huge amount of coverage and others getting next to nothing.

Mr Egeland talked about Darfur, which had a lot of attention from the world's media, then asked us why we had largely ignored the situation in Congo or Northern Uganda? He also talked about the media's obsession with celebrity, contrasting the time the American media devoted to Darfur versus the amount of airtime given over to Martha Stewart's brief spell behind bars. He clearly wasn't in Britain for coverage of the McCartney-Mills separation, but I suspect he'd have been less than impressed.

After a short break, while we digested what Mr Egeland had had to say, the rest of the morning was given over to the debate on embedding with the military. This subject is familiar territory now, but here was a chance for some senior military figures (retired, or about to retire) to give us their perspective on fighting with journalists in tow. There was debate about the extent to which objective journalism is compromised by being embedded with the military. The consensus, from where I was sitting, appeared to be that while embedding was useful in terms of getting access you would not otherwise get, there was still the need to have unilateral journalists going their own way.

That, of course, was what was bravely doing when he was killed. He was very much in delegates' minds today.

When is a terrorist a terrorist? It's frequently raised as an issue at the 大象传媒 and that question dominated the afternoon's proceedings as we debated the way we cover terrorism.

The person with the most experience of such matters at the 大象传媒 is probably the current affairs journalist , who has frequently reported on al-Qaeda. He shared his thoughts on the challenge of covering "terrorism" and the obvious difficulty in getting access to those who seek to promote it. Yosri Fouda of Al Jazeera has had such access. He defended his decision to interview those involved in terrorism, reminding us of the importance of context.

At the 大象传媒, we know that hearing all sides of the story is really important to our viewers, but we also know from some of the reaction to the recent Taliban film that it's a divisive issue. One person's "context" is another's "enemy propaganda". This debate rages on, as I write, and I suspect will be back on next year`s agenda.

Our video podcast, the is one week old today.

We launched it last week, boasting that it was "the first early morning news video podcast in the country". Not a particularly snappy boast admittedly, but it's something we're very proud of.

It's new technology and it's very exciting. It's not complicated to download, but it is quite complicted to promote.

There are all sorts of issues. Universality is one. How many people have a video ipod or MP4 player? We're trailing a product that (strictly speaking) is only available to people with that technology (I've been watching it on my home computer). Is that right?

Well, I'd argue that the same was true of digital television when I used to work at 大象传媒 News 24 a few years ago. Nowadays, the majority of the country gets digital TV and thanks to the fact that it launched when it did, News 24 is now well established, very polished and hugely attractive to those digital "late adopters".

Is it free? We had a few people e-mail us, on day one, to say it was wrong to say we were providing it for "free". Fair enough. We now say "free to download".

Do people actually want it? I'm not aware of anyone questioning the value of the video podcast yet, which is heartening. Unlike the , and vodcasts, which are in the 'best of' category, ours is supposed to be a bit different. To use a clich茅, it's "news you can use". It's around 10 minutes of news and information with a very limited shelf life. It'll probably be out of date by mid-morning, but it might be handy for your morning commute.

Thus far, the signs of take up are encouraging. At the end of its first week it was at number three in the iTunes news and politics 'league table'.

We hope to go higher and this is likely to cause me some local difficulty with my peers at the Ten and Newsnight. You see, they're very proud of their (excellent) vodcast offerings and I suspect our arrival on the scene has been greeted with some nervousness. Because of the disposable nature of our Breakfast Takeaway, I think we're catering for a different market. However, it's a sign of the power of the medium that we're all so eager to have a slice of the action.

I'd be very interested to know what people of think of it.

Richard Hammond . His doctors are apparently "cautiously optimistic".

When news of his accident broke on Wednesday night, details were sketchy. It had an, "oh god, that's awful" factor, and I was in doubt that it should lead Thursday morning's Breakfast.

Decisions over which story should get most prominence are often very difficult. Thursday morning's news agenda was relatively quiet and this story stood out to me, and the rest of the team working on the programme.

Was it the right lead? There's definitely a debate to be had. Quite a few viewers got in touch, either by email and text during the show, or by the more formal complaints procedure route, to suggest it was the wrong call.

"Is there nothing more important going on in the world?" was one view. "The coverage was excessive," was the view of many others. One person even complained that the accident "was self inflicted and should not be news".

At the same time, we had a big response from people who wanted to relay their shock and pass on their best wishes for Richard's recovery. We use a panel of viewers to monitor which news stories have the most impact and which stories viewers want to know more about. The answer, on both counts, was 'Richard Hammond's accident'.

We don't always get the choice of lead story right and the clarity provided by hindsight is powerful. However, on this occasion, I would stick with our choice of lead. He is a well known and much loved presenter, he was attempting something extraordinary and, as we now know, there was a huge amount of interest in what happened and in his condition.

I share my thoughts on this not because I think they are necessarily particularly important (self important journalists annoy people) but because I think it's important to try to shed light on our decision-making process.

What's much more important is that he recovers - and there are clearly so many people out there who want to see him back on screen as soon as possible.

At the risk of becoming the resident blog bore ("becoming?" I hear you say), I want to return to my theme of interaction again.

As I've said before there's nothing new per se in audience interaction - people were writing in to That's Life 30 years ago - it's just much easier to do it these days. But it's those very means of doing it that have also made life more complicated too.

Last week, Susanna Reid, our main stand-in presenter, told me she'd been tempted by the new Carphone Warehouse Talk Talk broadband package, announced amid much fanfare on Breakfast back in the spring. She said she'd had a nightmare with it and had been driven to distraction.

A potential news story? "大象传媒 presenter has problems with computer"? Err, no.

However, we sensed from what we'd heard elsewhere (including a recent report on , to be fair) that many of our viewers might be in the same boat.

So, Susanna , which aired on Wednesday.

A few people told us it was "indulgent". Someone even said it looked like a "vendetta".

It's certainly true that the power to put something on the television because you're cross about it is a privilege not to be abused. But we sensed it would resonate, and it did. We've had hundreds of e-mails from people who have had similar problems. Largely the complaints are about Talk Talk, but other broadband providers have also been driving our viewers wild.

A few people said Talk Talk provided a great product - and we were careful to include those comments. We followed it up this morning, and we're planning something for next week on the difficulties people face switching between providers.

Two things strike me about this:

1) Technology has the capacity to make people really cross in a "can鈥檛 live with it, can't live without it" kind of way.
And 2) people like to sound off and we can help with that. But all they really want is someone to fix it. If only we could...

I talked, in my last blog, about interactivity with our audience and I mentioned the importance of getting a sense of how our viewers are responding to a story.

This morning was a case in point.

A major terrorist plot had been foiled - we were told. There was chaos at some of Britain's airports, which was bound to get worse. And people were understandably worried.

We 'rolled' on the story from 6am, when we went on air, reporting on the unfolding developments and taking a break only for the briefest summary of other news, the usual regional bulletins and a short weather forecast.

Although we didn't read out emails or texts - the fact that our viewers were worried was hardly 'news' in itself - the traffic coming in from viewers did help to inform both the tone of our coverage and also the direction it took. We had a sense of the some of the questions our viewers wanted answered (some of which we'll return to tomorrow) and we also heard from people caught up in the chaos.

Glancing through the emails and texts at one point, I was also reminded of the challenge we face with repetition.

New viewers are turning on all the time - they want information. Viewers who've been with us for a while want new information, but they don't want to hear the same things repeated endlessly. There were a few people who told us to "'move on" and talk about something else. There were others who told us we'd provided a really coherant flow of essential information, for which they were grateful.

I hope we got the balance right.

When I tell people what I do, there are a few questions I always face.

"What are the presenters like in real life?" is one. "What do they talk about in those bits at the end of the show when the title music is playing?" is another. "And does anyone really bother to e-mail, text or call you?" is also a regular question.

The answer to that one is yes, thousands. And do we pay any attention? Yes, we'd be mad not to.

There are some mornings where it's obvious, from the relatively low traffic that no particular story has really got people going. They tend to be the days where the viewing figures are a bit lower than usual.

There are others, like today, when we are overwhelmed. They tend to be the days for bumper audiences.

And what got everybody talking this morning? Plastic bags.

Declan Curry was live at Tesco, where they're going to give customers Clubcard points for recying their carrier bags. The chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, joined us live and found himself answering not just Declan's questions, but also those of our viewers.

We have a producer dedicated to sifting through the e-mails, texts and calls. The best ones are picked out, then sent on to Declan's Blackberry.

Interactivity isn't to everyone's tastes of course. Some people tell me they turn off when we read out viewer's e-mails.

But I think it's really important for a number of reasons. Firstly, a show like Breakfast has to be in tune with its audience to be a success. What better way could there be of knowing whether or not you're connecting with the people watching?

Secondly, we've developed our Interactive offering over the last year or so. We realised that opinions aren't necessarily that interesting, where as experiences generally are. We've also found that some of the most pertinent questions can come from our viewers and they're often that much more challenging for our interviewees to answer because they're real questions from real people.

Thirdly, we鈥檝e actually covered quite a few news stories that came through a viewer e-mail or text. We even shut down an internet bank for a day, when a viewer alerted us to a security flaw.

Interactivity isn't new of course. Watchdog has just celebrated its 25th birthday and people have been writing to us here at Breakfast for years. It's just much easier now, with modern communication.

So, is there any point in e-mailing, texting or calling us? You bet. And, yes, every little helps.

David Kermode is editor of

The 大象传媒 Chairman Michael Grade joined us on the Breakfast set this morning. Thankfully his visit wasn't unannounced.

Hugo Rifkind, in his Times diary, smells a rat. "It helps to own the airwaves when you have a case to make," says Hugo.

It's certainly true that stories about the 大象传媒 are tricky, when we are the 大象传媒. But I don't think anyone who watched this morning's interview with Michael (watch it here) will have thought that he'd popped in for a cup of tea and a tickle.

Dermot launched straight into the licence fee negotiations, then Sian put him a question about Jonathan Ross's salary - "why so much?". This had nothing to do with her personal predjudices and everything to do with the volume of email and texts this morning on the issue.

Michael told Dermot and Sian they could be earning a lot more in the commercial sector. Then came executive pay - why, when jobs are going, are pay packets getting stuffed at the top? "We need top people" was the Chairman's response.

There were further questions on the kind of programmes the 大象传媒 chooses to make. Are we celebrity obsessed? Are there too many repeats? After around six minutes of grilling, we let him go. To suggest that Michael got an easy ride would be nonsense. He was treated just like any other public servant being held to account.

Hugo will know that journalists tend to respond very badly to being told to stick to a particular line, or giving someone an easy ride. The 大象传媒's newsroom is robustly resistant to corporate interference, to the extent that no-one really bothers to try as far I can tell. Ordering 大象传媒 journalists around is like trying to herd cats. And anyway, I'm sure Michael Grade would have been horrified if we'd suggested he might like to tell us what to ask him.

That said, I did have a twitchy moment, watching this morning's interview. I was convinced he'd been knighted a while back - and thought we'd neglected a 'Sir' (it turns out he got a CBE). Had I got my hands on the introductory script, I might have knighted him. I fear that might have undermined all of the above.

David Kermode is editor of

This came through our 'duty log' for feedback this morning:

"[Caller] feels that the background studio colours used by the programme are politically motivated. "I have noticed that they have been a red colour since the late 1990s and have now changed to a blue colour. Is this political psychology? I think the 大象传媒 are using background colours to influence people's political thinking."

What this particular viewer neglected to mention was that we have, this week, 'warmed up' our studio to incorporate far more oranges and a bit of brown. Does this mean we've switched allegiance to the Liberal Democrats?

If so, we'd be a pollster's nightmare. The ultimate swing voter. We'd have backed all three main parties in a month.

I'm not sure whether there could be any subliminal advantage for a particular party in news branding? Personally, I suspect our viewers wouldn't fall for it, even if there was.

We have run into these sort of problems before. When we launched our general election coverage with an ambitious outside broadcast from Bristol, it poured with rain. Dermot broadcast the entire show protected by a 大象传媒 Breakfast umbrella, in our house colours back then - red and yellow.

We had three complaints about the absence of blue in our brolly, including one man who wrote to me suggesting the choice of umbrella reflected Dermot Murnaghan's own political preferences. I wrote back to our viewer, assuring him that, to my knowledge, Dermot had never revealed anything about his political persuasion and that he'd certainly not got involved in the programme umbrella ordering process.

Anyway, try putting red, yellow and blue together. It might look balanced - but it also looks hideous.

I know a dog's breakfast when I see one. I have a dog. I make him breakfast. It doesn't look appealing, but he likes it.

Kate Silverton came to work on Thursday morning looking, at first glance, like she'd been in collision with a Carnaby Street hedge. It was bold and bright and, err, certainly striking.

But I liked it - and it certainly bore no resemblance to a dog's breakfast. Initial reaction from the viewers was hostile. So much so that Kate began to wonder if she'd made a mistake.

Kate being Kate, she was big enough to ponder it on air: "My blouse has divided opinion - I apologise if it's made you turn down the contrast on your set". Suddenly, we had a flood of e-mails and texts - evenly split over whether or not it looked like a dog's breakfast.

Sadly, there are some people who won't accept a female newsreader unless she's wearing an 80s' trouser suit complete with padded shoulders that make her look like an extra from LA Law. Kate isn't like that. She's funkier and she's willing to take a risk.

Thursday was a reasonable news day, so why was the bulk of our interactivity centred on a blouse? And why did we have 17 press enquiries about it? I'm not really sure. But it does underline the importance of the way our presenters look and it also highlights the kind of impact we can have.

Kate remains sanguine - albeit somewhat baffled. But she was big enough to lend us the blouse this morning to be modelled by a mannequin, while we discussed the fallout.

Will she wear it again? I think she should. Should we be bothered about all the fuss? Probably not.

It's raining, it's pouring... This weather is boring me to tears...

So what better week to choose to highlight the water shortages affecting parts of the UK? Well, OK. If I'm honest, we'd be in the grips of an early summer heatwave, rather than a Donna Summer retrorave.

And 大象传媒 Breakfast's rushed-to-air reactive might look more timely too.

But the fact remains that water levels are at record lows in parts of the UK. And hundreds of of thousands of people are already subject to water restrictions even though it's only May. We know our viewers care about it because when we made reference to the hosepipe bans in force around the South East, we had a huge response.

Many people were concerned about the water companies wasting water. Something we have already put to Thames Water in an interview last Friday. But many more seemed determined to do something in that "Dunkerque" kind of way.

So, why not ask them for their ideas? They've already started flooding in, if you'll excuse the pun. And we shall be highlighting some of the best ones this week on Breakfast.

We've even asked the legendary inventor Trevor Bayliss, of wind up radio fame, to invent a way of getting bath water into the garden (Bill Turnbull's idea).

So, why my obession with parts of the UK? Well, we've also had a steady trickle of viewer e-mails from northern England and Scotland asking us why we're obsessing about water shortages when the problem isn鈥檛 nearly so bad there.

A pertinent question. But surely, saving on water consumption is good for everyone isn't it? You don't have to be in the grip of a drought to want to cut your water use a bit.

As for the rest of our Water Week, the forecast is for more wet weather. In fact, apparently it's going to be wet until our special week ends. I don't think I can take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe again.. Again鈥�(to fade)