#Performance marketing companies London

[startups-bar]

Why UK Startups Should Partner with Top Performance Marketing Agencies for PPC Success

In the fast-paced and highly competitive landscape of UK startups, achieving significant online visibility and growth can be challenging. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a powerful tool that can propel startups towards success by driving targeted traffic and generating leads quickly. However, mastering PPC advertising requires expertise and experience. This is where partnering with the best performance marketing agencies in the UK can make a significant difference. Here’s why UK startups should collaborate with top performance marketing agencies for PPC success.

Expertise in PPC Advertising

PPC advertising is a dynamic and complex field that demands a deep understanding of various platforms, bidding strategies, keyword research, and ad creation. The best performance marketing agencies in the UK, such as [Example Agency 1] and [Example Agency 2], have teams of specialists with extensive experience in PPC. These experts stay up-to-date with the latest trends and algorithm changes, ensuring that your PPC campaigns are optimized for maximum effectiveness.

Precise Targeting for Maximum Impact

One of the key advantages of PPC advertising is the ability to target specific audiences. Performance marketing specialists use advanced targeting techniques to ensure that your ads reach the right people at the right time. By analyzing demographics, interests, and online behaviors, these experts can create highly targeted campaigns that drive high-quality traffic to your website. This precision targeting is crucial for startups that need to make the most of limited marketing budgets.

Efficient Budget Management

Startups often operate with tight budgets, making efficient budget management essential. Top performance marketing agencies in the UK are skilled at maximizing ROI through careful budget allocation and continuous optimization. They monitor campaign performance in real-time, making necessary adjustments to bids and targeting to ensure that every penny is spent wisely. This level of expertise helps startups achieve their marketing goals without overspending.

Comprehensive Digital Marketing Integration

PPC advertising doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It works best when integrated with other digital marketing strategies such as display advertising, social media advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO). Leading performance marketing companies in London, like [Example Agency 3], offer comprehensive digital marketing solutions. By combining PPC with other tactics, these agencies create cohesive and powerful campaigns that amplify your online presence and drive better results.

Advanced Google Ads Management

Google Ads is a cornerstone of PPC advertising, offering immense reach and targeting capabilities. However, managing Google Ads effectively requires expertise and continuous optimization. The best performance marketing agencies in the UK excel in Google Ads management, conducting thorough keyword research, creating compelling ad copy, and optimizing campaigns for peak performance. Their expertise ensures that your ads appear prominently in search results, driving relevant traffic to your site.

Leveraging Facebook Ads Management

Social media platforms like Facebook offer additional avenues for PPC success. Facebook Ads management is another area where performance marketing specialist shine. By leveraging Facebook’s sophisticated targeting options, these experts can create personalized ads that resonate with your audience. This approach not only drives traffic but also enhances engagement and brand loyalty.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) for Enhanced Performance

Driving traffic to your website is only part of the equation. Converting that traffic into customers is the ultimate goal. Top performance marketing agencies in the UK focus on conversion rate optimization (CRO) to improve the effectiveness of your PPC campaigns. By analyzing user behavior, testing different landing pages, and implementing strategic changes, these agencies ensure that more of your visitors take the desired action, whether it’s making a purchase or filling out a contact form.

Tailored Solutions for Startups

Every startup is unique, with its own set of challenges and goals. Performance marketing agencies in the UK understand this and offer tailored solutions that align with your specific needs. Whether you’re looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or boost sales, these agencies create customized PPC strategies that deliver results. Their flexibility and adaptability make them ideal partners for startups in various stages of growth.

Building a Strong Online Presence

A strong online presence is crucial for startup success in today’s digital age. By partnering with the best performance marketing agencies in the UK, startups can build and maintain a robust online presence. These agencies use a combination of PPC, display advertising, social media advertising, and content marketing to ensure that your brand remains visible and engaging to your target audience.

Conclusion

For UK startups aiming to achieve rapid growth and online success, partnering with top performance marketing agencies is a strategic move. These agencies bring expertise, precision, and efficiency to PPC advertising, helping startups make the most of their marketing budgets and drive tangible results. With their comprehensive digital marketing solutions, including Google Ads management, Facebook Ads management, and conversion rate optimization, performance marketing specialists provide the support and guidance that startups need to thrive in a competitive market. By leveraging the expertise of the best performance marketing agencies in the UK, startups can navigate the complexities of PPC advertising and achieve their business objectives with confidence.

[fatehbaz]

Woah. Not exaggerating: The very same week you tagged me here, I was submitting a final draft paper about spectacle and British use of animal imagery and caricatures of South Asian resistance, especially on stages and in "ethnographic" exhibitions. Part of this involved the weaponization of spectacle, media, and public display. And part of this involved British imagination of "exotic" animals. And the article shown here kinda invokes both of those subjects.

That afternoon, I had been reading through a 2012 article with new-to-me info about the staging of theatre-esque mass trials/executions of Thugee by British administrators 1820s-1850s. (More on that below.)

In the pictured article/link shown here, similarly, Shanahan describes fig trees and mass hangings of Indian rebels. He lists about a dozen instances of when British authorities used fig trees to perform quasi-ritualized mass executions between 1806 and 1871.

Among them, he notes two in particular:

1857, hanging 144 rebels from a single tree in Nanaro Park at Kanpur (Shanahan cites a T!mes of !nd!a article, which itself cites a history department professor at Christ Church College)

March 1860, hanging 257 rebels from a single tree in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, in retaliation for their revolt in May/June 1857, when rallying under Khan Bahadur Khan (Shanahan again cites T!mes of !nd!a, who cite an ancient history and culture professor at Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Rohilkhand University)

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The same afternoon you tagged me, I was straight-up reading:

Maire ni Fhlathuin, "Staging Criminality and Colonial Authority: The Execution of Thug Criminals in British India." Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, Volume 37, Issue 1, October 2012.

She "examines the staging and response to the public executions of thugs, focusing on the British authorities' 'scripting' of the execution ritual (as documented in East India Company records and the writings of the officials involved) to include [...] the crowd's appreciation of the eradication of that criminality."

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British animalization and/or dehumanization in depictions of South Asia, what they both call "interspecies/multispecies empire," more directly explored by Rohan Deb Roy (insects/bugs in India) and Jonathan Saha (elephants/cattle in Burma). But another thing I had been referencing in my own little paper was British fixation on re-enacting the defeat of Indian rebels, which you might especially notice in stage plays about Tipu Sultan (the "Tiger of Mysore" beaten by "the British bulldog," defeated in 1799, who became the central villain/character of multiple spectacular and popular plays in London from 1790s-1830s, to such an extent that British schoolchildren decades later would still understand references to villianous "Tipu"; and historian Daniel O'Quinn, who's written much about British popular discourses about crises in the Age of Revolutions, called the plays comparable to "precinema"; after his defeat, the East India Company could secure sandalwood resources and perform sweeping cartographic surveys for land/revenue administration). Probably worth noting nineteenth-century Britain played host to the explosion of newly-affordable mass-market print media of all kinds; recalcitrant South Asian rebels show up in stage, sportsmen's magazines, travel literature genre, novels, etc.

On the subject of weaponizing newly-emergent media, the author linked/pictured here (Shanahan) too, also lists in his bibliography:

Sean Willcock. "Aesthetic Bodies: Posing on Sites of Violence in India, 1857-1900." History of Photography, Volume 39 (2015), Issue 2, pages 142-159.

Abstract includes: "This article looks at how aesthetic concerns inflected the dynamic of imperial relations during the 1857 Indian Uprising and its aftermath. The invention of photography inaugurated a period in which aesthetic imperatives increasingly came to structure the engagement of colonial bodies with the traumas of warfare in British India. The formal conventions of image-making practices were not consigned to a discreet virtual sphere; they were channelled into the contested terrains of the subcontinent through the poses that figures were striking for the camera. I trace how one pictorial convention - picturesque staffage - had the capacity to engender politically and psychologically disruptive tableaus on the contested terrains of empire, as colonial photographers arranged for Indian figures to pose on landscapes that were marked by disturbing wartime violence."

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And finally, another of his citations includes:

Kim A Wagner. "'Calculated to Strike Terror': The Amritsar Massacre and the Spectacle of Colonial Violence." Past & Present, Volume 233, Issue 1, November 2016, pages 185-225.

And in her article, Wagner describes:

"Closely following the ritual model provided by judiciary practices in the imperial homeland, the British in India nevertheless favoured hanging [...] Controlling the symbolism of public executions, however, proved increasingly difficult within a colonial context, and the hanging of hundreds of highway robbers known as Thugs during the 1830s had fully exposed the porous nature of colonial rituals of power. The Thugs signally failed to conform [...]. [T]hey [...] climbed the scaffold and [...] tightened the noose around their own neck and then simply stepped off the platform [...]. As regiment after regiment broke out in mutiny across northern India during the summer of 1857, [...] the colonial state thus unleashed its entire arsenal of exemplary violence. [...] [A]nd it was in that context that the first mass execution of forty sepoys by cannon had been ordered in Peshawar on 13 June 1857 [...]. This was only the first of many such mass executions [...]. A contemporary British newspaper report elaborated on the cultural specificity of the ritual enacted in Peshawar: You must know that this is nearly the only form in which death has any terrors for a native … he knows that his body will be blown into a thousand pieces, and that it will be altogether impossible for his relatives, however devoted to him, to be sure of picking up all the fragments of his own particular body [...]. Execution by cannon could thus be presented as both justified and civilized or, as Lord Roberts put it, ‘Awe inspiring, certainly, but probably the most humane, as being a sure and instantaneous mode of execution’. [...] In the House of Commons, Lord Stanley expressed this sentiment in no uncertain terms: ‘Only by great exertions - by the employment of force, by making striking examples, and inspiring terror, could Sir J. Lawrence save the Punjab; and if the Punjab had been lost the whole of India would for the time have been lost with it’.

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I do kinda wonder if, sometimes, contemporary people, today, might think: "Well, maybe we're unfairly retroactively ascribing motivations of malice to nineteenth-century imperial administrators. And even if they were sometimes spiteful or horrifically violent to that extent, surely they probably exercised discretion; they couldn't have been too explicit." But then you read about them performing executions by shooting cannonballs at groups of people. Or you read the words of major popular, industrial, or political figures casually describing this kind of thing when speaking directly to the public, the newspapers, or the House of Commons (you can read plenty more scary, explicit comments like this from other officials and administrators in all kinds of institutions).

As Shanahan describes here in "Trees of life that became agents of death," British administrators (and media in the metropole, too) whether deliberately or otherwise, manipulated or employed animals and plants in the popular conciousness; whole bunch of writing elsewhere about British fixation on "man-eating" tigers, lions, crocodiles, mosquitoes, flies, etc., and appropriating creatures (like appropriating fig trees in Shanahan's reading). Or idealization of the same and other creatures, like celebrating rubber, sugarcane, elephants, etc. Dovetails with long history of picturing and/or harnessing "tropical nature" in US, British, and European imaginaries.

[stylesnews]

FLORENCE, Italy – As Steven Stokey-Daley’s fall show in Florence during Pitti Uomo wrapped, the British designer, the 2022 recipient of the LVMH Prize for Young Designers, revealed longtime fan Harry Styles is acquiring a minority stake in the company.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Harry and I have a shared vision for the future of S.S. Daley and we look forward to this new chapter together as we focus on brand longevity and scaling the business into a modern British heritage house,” the designer, 26, said.

The pair was introduced by Styles’ stylist Harry Lambert, who masterminded the wardrobe for the artist’s “Golden” music video, outfitting him in Stokey-Daley’s graduate collection.

The investment is geared at building S.S. Daley’s direct-to-consumer business and forge ahead with plans for a “sustainable and long-term expansion,” the company said in a statement.

After graduating from the University of Westminster, Stokey-Daley made his London Fashion Week debut in September 2021 supported by the National Youth Theatre artistic director Paul Roseby, staging a four-part performance by members of the theater, riffing on British tailoring and tackling such topics as social class, inequality, school life, sexual awakening and homosexuality.

That same year, the S.S. Daley designer was among the recipients of the British Fashion Council’s Newgen initiative and was awarded again by the British fashion governing body the following year, with the BFC Foundation Awards.

The designer’s gender-fluid take on the uniforms of the British upper classes, such as wide-leg trousers, argyle-knit wool vests and embroidered shirts, appeals to a Gen-Z sensibility, and a growing female customer base. The brand is currently stocked in a handful of retailers, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Dover Street Market, Matchesfashion, Bergdorf Goodman, 10 Corso Como Seoul and I.T Store.

Attending the S.S. Daley show in Florence, Sir Paul Smith praised Stokey-Daley and said: “I think that the ideal thing [for him] would be to try and work in parallel with a commercial company that help him develop as a commercial designer, as well as creative designer. And of course, that’s what everybody dreams of. He has the balance between commerciality and creativity.”

“I think [his designs] might have had similarities in my earlier [career]… We are in 60-something countries now. So you have to be a lot more aware of commerciality and things that work for the shops especially right now because the business and around the world is so difficult for people,” Smith added.

Styles’ investment falls in line with a growing number of celebrities becoming brand shareholders. They include, among others, Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon who invested in Spanx; Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas in skiwear maker Perfect Moment; Beyoncé, Jessica Alba and Rihanna in French accessories firm Destree; Mila Kunis, Cameron Diaz and Gabrielle Union in Autumn Adeigbo, and Mark Wahlberg in Italian sneaker brand P448.

[scotianostra]

July 13th 1900 saw the birth of Elizabeth “Bessie” Watson in Edinburgh.

Born just off the Grassmarket, at 11 The Vennel to Agnes Newton and Horatio Watson, Bessie did not take long to make her mark in the world, at the tender age of 9 she combined her two greatest loves: bagpiping and woman’s suffrage, the latter makes her arguably the youngest in Scotland, if not the world.

When she turned seven, Bessie’s aunt Margaret contracted tuberculosis – an incident which would change the youngster’s life forever. Margaret lived with the family, and Bessie’s parents, worried that she might fall ill to the contagious disease, encouraged her to take up the bagpipes in a bid to strengthen her weak lungs. Her first set of pipes was specially-produced according to her diminutive stature as she was too small to properly inflate an adult-sized bag. The half-sized set of pipes was purchased from Robertson’s pipe makers at 58 Grove Street. “I hurried home from school and carried it, in a brown paper parcel down to my (music) teacher”, Bessie recalled. As one of the very few female bagpipe players in the world at that time – not to mention one of the youngest – Bessie took to her new instrument with great enthusiasm.

Bessie had more than her bag pipe playing to make her worthy of a post here, while walking with her mother through the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland, Bessie stopped to look at the window of the Women’s Social and Political Union office. Bessie became excited about the idea of women receiving the right to vote, even though she wouldn’t be able to vote for many years.

Bessie realized that her talents could help promote votes for women. She would run from school each day to play her bagpipes outside of the Calton Jail in Edinburgh for fellow suffragettes in prison.

At the first suffrage pageant she performed at, she wore a sash with the words “Votes for Women” as she performed with her bagpipes. At the height of the suffragette movement, Bessie was playing at major demonstrations and parades for the Women’s Social and Political Union, including the famous procession through Edinburgh on 9th October 1909. On that day a large crowd watched as hundreds of banner-laden ladies, wearing the suffragist colours of purple, white and green, marched down Princes Street before congregating at Waverley Market for a rally led by Emmeline Pankhurst. Watson rode on a float beside a woman dressed as Isabella Duff, Countess of Buchan in her cage! Isabella is famed for crowning Robert the Bruce at Scone when he seized the Scottish crown, she was later captured with the Bruce family and held prisoner in a cage in the open air at Berwick for four years.

Back to oor Bessie, who just a ten year-old she travelled to London to play her bagpipes in a women’s march on June 17th, 1911. J ust a few weeks later, for George’s state visit to Edinburgh, Bessie, leading the 2nd Edinburgh Company of the Girl Guides, received recognition from the king himself as she raised her salute. Having secured regal acknowledgement in time for her 11th birthday, Scotland’s youngest female piper continued in her quest to support women’s rights, accompanying inmates bound for Holloway Prison to Waverley Station and playing the pipes as their trains departed.

For the part she played in Edinburgh’s historic women’s rights pageant of 1909, young Bessie received a special gift from one very prominent individual. Christabel Pankhurst (daughter of Emmeline) came to Edinburgh to address a meeting at the King’s Theatre and Bessie was invited to attend. During the evening she was presented with a brooch representing Queen Boadicea (Boudica) in her chariot, as a token of gratitude for her help in the pageant.

During WWI, Bessie was just a teenager and used her talents to make a difference in other ways. She began helping the Scots Guard to recruit army volunteers by playing her bagpipes

In 1926 Bessie moved with her parents to a new house on Clark Road, Trinity where she would remain for the rest of her days. Following her marriage to electrical contractor John Somerville at the end of the Second World War, Bessie devoted her life to teaching music and foreign languages. Former neighbours recall that, even into her late eighties, Bessie continued to play her bagpipes at 11am every morning. It was something she had always done.

Bessie died in 1992, two and a half weeks short of her 92nd birthday. Over the course of her long life she had experienced almost a century of social progression and upheaval, and had played her part in changing the world for the better.

A pictorial tribute was unveiled at The Vennel in Edinburgh on August 1st 2019 in memory of Bessie, the University of Edinburgh also have a lecture room named in her honour.

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Hi! I sent the anon about the BMG article - I can't link but it's online if you want to

Here’s the article, and I’ll excerpt:

SO WHAT’S BMG’S SECRET?

Number one, and it sounds obvious, make a great album. In the early days of the new BMG, we were very much artist services: you delivered a record, we released it for you.

Under Korda [Marshall, former BMG SVP] and now Jamie, the A&R element is very important. With all of the examples we could look at, the records are very good – but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be successful.

The second element, in almost every example, is they have great management. The partnership between the label and the artist manager is so integral.

And the third element is the excitement and determination coming from the artist themselves. If it’s, ‘We’re going on tour, we should put a record out to support the tour’, that’s OK, but it’s not being driven by the music. I’ve had artists in here who’ve said, ‘This feels like the first roll of the dice’, even though it’s many years later.

IS IT HARDER TO DO THOSE DEALS NOW YOU’RE UP AGAINST VENTURE CAPITALISTS?

The problem is, we’ve seen a lot of overheated deals that have inflated prices and it’s very hard then to say to somebody, ‘This is what your catalogue is worth’, because they’re like, ‘Well, so-and-so got that much’.

If you’re selling a portion of your catalogue, but you’re still going to be out there performing and releasing new music, it’s important you have a company that’s a proper publisher or label. We will always curate and look after your legacy better than a fund will do, because we know how to administer songs and release recordings.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE MORE ACTS SIGNED FOR BOTH RECORDS AND PUBLISHING?

The balance is good. What we’ve never done is pressurise or make anything contingent on one or the other.

I enjoy the fact that lots of our writers are signed to other labels. Since Thomas took over, you’re seeing more engagement with the industry. Our communication historically was a little bit, ‘We’re out on our own, BMG is the new music company’. I always felt we were somewhat detached from the industry.

Now we’re shifting our physical distribution to Universal from October, going direct to digital and building our relationships with DSPs, you’re starting to see people joining BMG from the majors, particularly in the US and UK; you didn’t see that before.

The industry needs to be more collaborative. The Ivors is the best awards show because it’s the publishing industry coming together, acknowledging and rewarding everybody else’s success.

There’s always a feeling in the room of collaboration. The BRITs is more competitive, you support your team. But music publishers are used to sharing songs; we share the song, so we share the success.

HOW HAVE THOMAS’ [CEO Coesfeld] CHANGES AFFECTED THE WAY YOU WORK?

The biggest change Thomas has made is the focus on just being a publisher and a record company. It was great to be able to make documentaries and co-produce films but, on reflection after 12 months of not doing that, this is a much better way to run a business – to be super-focused on the core business of music publishing and records.

The other big change, which perhaps hasn’t been explained as well as it should have been, is the change to how we’re working internationally.

We had created a large international hub in Berlin and local marketing was going via Berlin. That team was disbanded last autumn, and there was a discussion in the industry about ‘BMG bailing out of international’ – which was totally contrary to what we are doing!

Now, with UK projects being marketed in America, they’re not going through a central hub, there’s just direct communication from London to Los Angeles.

CONVERSELY, IT SEEMS TO BE A VERY TOUGH TIME FOR BRITISH ARTISTS INTERNATIONALLY…

If we were exclusively focused on breaking talent, it would be very difficult. But the world we’re in and the artists we’re working with… I look at Simple Minds; next year will be the biggest US tour they’ve ever done. I look at Louis Tomlinson; his touring is going from strength to strength.

That Suede/Manics tour began in the US. I remember going to the Brooklyn show and thinking, ‘This is the smart way for UK acts to team up’. You’re getting bigger audiences at less cost and you’ll see more of those package tours, they’re excellent.

It is harder than it’s ever been, but the lane we are in gives me confidence that we can work within the parameters of the current climate.

DOES BMG STILL WANT TO TAKE ON THE MAJORS?

One has to be realistic. Frankly, you’re not going to take [them] on. We want to be competitive, but we’re seeing much more of a collaborative spirit.

It should be a healthy, competitive marketplace but there are so many examples now where artists are featuring on other people’s records… So many records are X featuring Y and it involves two labels, one of them is the releasing label and the other one shares in the revenues.

There’s a lot more partnership coming and an artist doesn’t want to hear that you don’t get on with this label, because that’s buggering up their plans.

When we started, we had to be disruptive and agitate. But, as an industry, we’ll be stronger if we’re more aligned than if we fight with each other.

WHAT ARE YOUR PRIORITIES OVER THE NEXT FEW YEARS?

To be more impactful internationally. To support the doubling down in the US, by signing the records and artists that can be meaningful in America, and moving into stadium artists.

In 2018, we were in theatres. Now we’re in arenas. Our job is to demonstrate to those artists that we are a serious contender at that [stadium] level.

We’re proud to publish Dave Rowntree from Blur – we could do a Blur album. I’m proud to do the neighbouring rights for Coldplay – we could do a Coldplay record. I’m proud to have worked with Bono on the Peter And The Wolf project – we could do a U2 record. I’m proud to publish Matt Bellamy – we could do a Muse record.

Every time you think maybe BMG has run out of runway, it hasn’t. And, because of the way the industry’s going, there are more opportunities coming. This is a good time to be at BMG.

So what I’m getting out of this:

1. BMG takes a lot of its cues from the artists and their managements. It isn’t comfortable taking big risks unless that’s what the artist wants to do.

2. BMG is more comfortable working with established acts who have a firm fanbase. It has neither the money nor manpower to break new acts or to significantly grow old ones. The BMG A&R department is more about connecting established artists to other creatives in industry, not breaking unknowns.

3. BMG takes a smaller slice of the pie from artists because established artists negotiate better terms for themselves. Just like we’ve seen with Louis, BMG relies on fans to pick up whatever their artist is doing.

4. BMG is not competitive in the USA. They’ve not been able to expand in the biggest English-speaking market in the world, and that really impacts them globally since USA charts affect so much global listening. Maybe Louis’ Eurocentric focus is a consequence of BMG’s Eurocentric business. It’s more complicated than just one factor, but it might partially explain the difference of Louis’ success in the USA with Niall, who is with one of the big three.

5. Venture capital is really turning the creative arts into big business, in a bad way. The same way venture cap has locked young people out of home ownership and savings, it’s killed the careers of young people breaking organically into music. Now every artist is seen as the worth of their tours and future catalogues. That means fewer artists make it through, less risk, more generic-sounding, corporate-approved, AI-generated bullshit.

6. Louis is doing fine. He’s staying with BMG, not going anywhere. He is a nice bright spot at BMG, but not on the order of Kylie Minogue. Louis is an arena-sized touring artist, at least in the USA and Europe, at least for the foreseeable future.

[rhapsodynew]

Freddie Mercury made his debut 55 years ago. And it wasn't Queen

In 1969, the Ibex group was founded in Liverpool, where 22-year-old Farrukh Bulsara became the vocalist. By that time, he had already graduated London College of Art in Ealing and change several jobs. At one point he worked as a porter at Heathrow Airport, and at another he sold clothes at Kensington Market.

However, Farrukh Bulsar's thoughts were far beyond the market stalls. In August 1969, he met the musicians of the Ibex band, which was part progressive, part heavy blues band. They had played their first concert just a few months earlier, in May. At that time, Ibex consisted of Mike Bersin on guitar, John Taylor on bass and Mick Smith on drums. Most importantly, they were willing to consider bringing in a new vocalist and embrace some of his new ideas.

Just ten days later, Bulsara had already mastered the band's setlist, added a few moments of his own and traveled to Bolton and Lancashire to perform in front of an audience.

On September 9, 1969, the Ibex band performed at the club "With Sink" in Liverpool, where they performed an encore Brian May and Roger Taylor. It was their first concert together. At that time May and Taylor was a member of the band Smile, which also included Tim Staffell is Farrukh Bulsara's college friend.

Farrukh quickly became a fan of the Smile band, and this joint concert was his last as a member of the Ibex group. He joined the band Sour Milk Sea, which disbanded just a month later.

Sour Milk Sea

Then Farrukh Bulsara had to return to his former band, which was now called Wreckage.

The Ibex band, like Wreckage, have not recorded a single studio album, but a couple of demo recordings have been preserved - a song called "Green" and a cover version of "Rain" by The Beatles. Both of them were included in the album "The Solo Collection" by Mercury, released posthumously in 2000.

The Wreckage band did not last long either, and after its breakup in November 1969, Farrukh Bulsara joined the company of his friends in the Smile band.

Farrukh, always bubbling with ideas, suggested renaming the band Queen, and took the pseudonym Freddie Mercury for himself.

A long twenty-year history has begun...

Much later, Ibex guitarist Mike Bersin in a conversation with a historian Queen John S. Stewart said:

 "We thought that as a trio it would be enough for us to play fairly simple music and not worry too much about stage skills. But Freddie was different. He's always been a star. He was much better at organizing shows and entertaining people."

According to Bersina, Freddie was the "most musical" of all the Ibex band members.

"He learned to play the piano and could write on black keys," explained Bersin. "He said, 'We're never going to achieve anything by playing all this three-chord blues nonsense, we need to write some songs.' A few things came out of it, but now they're all gone."

In particular, concert recordings of such covers as "Crossroads", "Communication Breakdown", "Jailhouse Rock", "We're Going Wrong" were lost.

Yes, it's a pity that these records were not preserved, but in the end, everything turned out as well as possible. And we all know that for sure now.

Mike Bersin added to everything:

 "Freddie knew what he wanted. That's why he became an international star. It wasn't an accident. It happened because that's what he wanted to be from the moment I first met him. He had a purpose and an aspiration."

And that's great!

[justforbooks]

The actor Michael Jayston, who has died aged 88, was a distinguished performer on stage and screen. The roles that made his name were as the doomed Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in Franklin Schaffner’s sumptuous account of the last days of the Romanovs in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), and as Alec Guinness’s intelligence minder in John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on television in 1979. He never made a song and dance about himself and perhaps as a consequence was not launched in Hollywood, as were many of his contemporaries.

Before these two parts, he had already played a key role in The Power Game on television and Henry Ireton, Cromwell’s son-in-law, in Ken Hughes’s fine Cromwell (1969), with Richard Harris in the title role and Guinness as King Charles I. And this followed five years with the Royal Shakespeare Company including a trip to Broadway in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, in which he replaced Michael Bryant as Teddy, the brother who returns to the US and leaves his wife in London to “take care of” his father and siblings.

Jayston, who was not flamboyantly good-looking but clearly and solidly attractive, with a steely, no-nonsense, demeanour and a steady, piercing gaze, could “do” the Pinter menace as well as anyone, and that cast – who also made the 1973 movie directed by Peter Hall – included Pinter’s then wife, Vivien Merchant, as well as Paul Rogers and Ian Holm.

Jayston had found a replacement family in the theatre. Born Michael James in Nottingham, he was the only child of Myfanwy (nee Llewelyn) and Vincent; his father died of pneumonia, following a serious accident on the rugby field, when Michael was one, and his mother died when he was a barely a teenager. He was then brought up by his grandmother and an uncle, and found himself involved in amateur theatre while doing national service in the army; he directed a production of The Happiest Days of Your Life.

He continued in amateur theatre while working for two years as a trainee accountant for the National Coal Board and in Nottingham fish market, before winning a scholarship, aged 23, to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he was five years older than everyone else on his course. He played in rep in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and at the Salisbury Playhouse before joining the Bristol Old Vic for two seasons in 1963.

At the RSC from 1965, he enjoyed good roles – Oswald in Ghosts, Bertram in All’s Well That Ends Well, Laertes to David Warner’s Hamlet – and was Demetrius in Hall’s film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968), with Warner as Lysander in a romantic foursome with Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren.

But his RSC associate status did not translate itself into the stardom of, say, Alan Howard, Warner, Judi Dench, Ian Richardson and others at the time. He was never fazed or underrated in this company, but his career proceeded in a somewhat nebulous fashion, and Nicholas and Alexandra, for all its success and ballyhoo, did not bring him offers from the US.

Instead, he played Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972), a so-so British musical film version with music and lyrics by John Barry and Don Black, with Michael Crawford as the White Rabbit and Peter Sellers the March Hare. In 1979 he was a colonel in Zulu Dawn, a historically explanatory prequel to the earlier smash hit Zulu.

As an actor he seemed not to be a glory-hunter. Instead, in the 1980s, he turned in stylish and well-received leading performances in Noël Coward’s Private Lives, at the Duchess, opposite Maria Aitken (1980); as Captain von Trapp in the first major London revival of The Sound of Music at the Apollo Victoria in 1981, opposite Petula Clark; and, best of all, as Mirabell, often a thankless role, in William Gaskill’s superb 1984 revival, at Chichester and the Haymarket, of The Way of the World, by William Congreve, opposite Maggie Smith as Millamant.

Nor was he averse to taking over the leading roles in plays such as Peter Shaffer’s Equus (1973) or Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa (1992), roles first occupied in London by Alec McCowen. He rejoined the National Theatre – he had been Gratiano with Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright in The Merchant of Venice directed by Jonathan Miller in 1974 – to play a delightful Home Counties Ratty in the return of Alan Bennett’s blissful, Edwardian The Wind in the Willows in 1994.

On television, he was a favourite side-kick of David Jason in 13 episodes of David Nobbs’s A Bit of a Do (1989) – as the solicitor Neville Badger in a series of social functions and parties across West Yorkshire – and in four episodes of The Darling Buds of May (1992) as Ernest Bristow, the brewery owner. He appeared again with Jason in a 1996 episode of Only Fools and Horses.

He figured for the first time on fan sites when he appeared in the 1986 Doctor Who season The Trial of a Time Lord as Valeyard, the prosecuting counsel. In the new millennium he passed through both EastEnders and Coronation Street before bolstering the most lurid storyline of all in Emmerdale (2007-08): he was Donald de Souza, an unpleasant old cove who fell out with his family and invited his disaffected wife to push him off a cliff on the moors in his wheelchair, but died later of a heart attack.

By now living on the south coast, Jayston gravitated easily towards Chichester as a crusty old colonel – married to Wendy Craig – in Coward’s engaging early play Easy Virtue, in 1999, and, three years later, in 2002, as a hectored husband, called Hector, to Patricia Routledge’s dotty duchess in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s translation of Jean Anouilh’s Léocadia under the title Wild Orchids.

And then, in 2007, he exuded a tough spirituality as a confessor to David Suchet’s pragmatic pope-maker in The Last Confession, an old-fashioned but gripping Vatican thriller of financial and political finagling told in flashback. Roger Crane’s play transferred from Chichester to the Haymarket and toured abroad with a fine panoply of senior British actors, Jayston included.

After another collaboration with Jason, and Warner, in the television movie Albert’s Memorial (2009), a touching tale of old war-time buddies making sure one of them is buried on the German soil where first they met, and a theatre tour in Ronald Harwood’s musicians-in-retirement Quartet in 2010 with Susannah York, Gwen Taylor and Timothy West, he made occasional television appearances in Midsomer Murders, Doctors and Casualty. Last year he provided an introduction to a re-run of Tinker Tailor on BBC Four. He seemed always to be busy, available for all seasons.

As a keen cricketer (he also played darts and chess), Jayston was a member of the MCC and the Lord’s Taverners. After moving to Brighton, he became a member of Sussex county cricket club and played for Rottingdean, where he was also president.

His first two marriages – to the actor Lynn Farleigh in 1965 and the glass engraver Heather Sneddon in 1970 – ended in divorce. From his second marriage he had two sons, Tom and Ben, and a daughter, Li-an. In 1979 he married Ann Smithson, a nurse, and they had a son, Richard, and daughter, Katie.

🔔 Michael Jayston (Michael James), actor, born 29 October 1935; died 5 February 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[head-post]

Brexit cost UK £27bn of trade losses in its first two years

Despite the decline in trade volumes, London School of Economics (LSE) research shows that the overall effect has been more limited than originally predicted by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The damage from Brexit to trade links with the EU totalled £27bn for the UK in the first two years, but the overall effect was more limited than analysts originally predicted, according to the most comprehensive review of the issue since Britain’s full exit from the bloc in early 2021.

Researchers from the London School of Economics found that trade barriers have been a “disaster” for small businesses and have forced thousands of companies to stop trading with EU countries.

Academics from the Centre for Economic Performance looked at evidence from more than 100,000 companies and found that by the end of 2022, two years after signing the Joint Trade and Co-operation Agreement (JTA) with Brussels, total exports of UK goods had fallen by 6.4 per cent and imports by 3.1 per cent.

The OBR estimate predicts that in the long term the UK will face a 15 per cent fall in trade, leading to a 4 per cent drop in national income. Despite this, researchers at the Centre for Economic Performance said the UK could experience a fall of the magnitude predicted by the OBR if trade relations with its largest trading partner deteriorate further.

Thomas Sampson, one of the report’s authors, said that by the end of 2022, the JTA had reduced trade in goods by less than half of what the OBR had predicted. However, the OBR figures are long-term projections and only the first two years of the JTA were studied. Further reductions in trade would be required to match OBR’s projections.

Rachel Reeves is likely to welcome the findings, which show the resilience of the economy in the face of a major trade shock. However, it will also create pressure on the finance minister to support efforts to reduce trade barriers over the next few years to prevent the situation from getting worse.

The UK plans to start negotiations next year on the next phase of the JTA. Ministers are expected to resist demands to open up agricultural markets to competition from EU farmers and fishing vessels in return for greater market access for British goods in the bloc.

Trade continued at the same level

The study’s authors noted that in the first two years of the JTA, large companies largely continued to trade with their EU counterparts at the same level. However, smaller exporters, those companies with fewer than 100 employees, suffered significantly. More than 14,000 of the 100,000 companies studied stopped trading with the EU completely, and almost all of them were small businesses.

Imports showed resilience compared to exports as large companies found ways to buy components and raw materials from outside the EU. Thomas Sampson also emphasised that the JTA was a disaster for small exporters, many of whom simply stopped exporting to the EU. However, large companies have adapted well to the new trade barriers and consequently overall exports have so far fallen less than expected.

The study was the first to analyse the impact of Brexit on trade using customs data collected by HMRC. The researchers said the data allowed them to look at individual business relationships and “highlight how large companies adapted better to the new trade regime than SMEs.”

The JTA did not include tariffs, but did introduce barriers to trade such as customs checks and paperwork, origin requirements, excise duties, sanitary and phytosanitary checks on the movement of animals and plants, and the need for exporters to prove that products meet the requirements of the target market. However, many of these checks have been repeatedly postponed and further measures are still due to come into force next year.

The study only looked at trade in goods and did not cover imports and exports of services, which largely fall outside the single market and customs union. Kalina Manova, co-author of the study and professor of economics at UCL, said the long-term productivity of firms will depend on their ability to maintain supply networks and diversify export demand in the face of higher and uncertain non-tariff barriers to trade with the EU.

The report shows that the UK’s exit from the EU’s single market and customs union in early 2021 resulted in an immediate decline in exports and imports with the EU. However, it also shows that companies responded to this shock in a way that mitigated the fall in overall trade.

Large companies did not experience a decline in exports, while importers partly compensated for the decline in imports from the EU by purchasing from other countries. Thus, at least in the short term, aggregate trade proved moderately resilient to the disintegration.

Read more HERE

[audio-luddite]

Not Bad.

In my wandering around the internoise I find a lot of errors. Errors of fact which in turn lead to confusion and poor assumptions.

I often comment on two dichotomies in the audio world. One is of course tube versus solid state electronics. The other is digital versus analog recording and play back. In both areas either side can provide excellent performance.

I have and appreciate both digital and analog recordings.

I have and appreciate both tube and solid state electronics.

Each are different. I have preferences. Neither is inherently bad.

Other people get wound up and committed to this side or that. Recently I read a person saying that vinyl albums have a limited frequency response so they are obviously inferior just for that. London ffrr recordings claimed up to 16khz which is pretty good, and CDs are good to 22khz ( 1/2 of 44khz or the Nyquist frequency) end of debate, so there.

The CD could easily produce up to the theoretical limit of human hearing. I think all digital methods have a similar limit as even with very high carrier frequencies they are filtered to pass nothing above 20khz. That is to facilitate low slopes in the output filters of Class D amplifiers for example. Academic for me as my hearing quits at 12 khz.

But what is the actual limit of LP frequency response? How about 45 khz. Back in the 1970s several companies tried to make quadraphonic sound. They encoded rear channel signals using a high frequency modulation on top of the normal music signal. It did not work all that well, and there were several competing standards and nobody won. But it did fundamentally work.

They produced stereo phono cartridges and LPs with 45 khz information on them using basically the methods used before and since. They made LPs with ultrasonic signals on them. They developed styli that were finer to track this information such as the Shibata which are still made.

My Signet TK7E cartridge was rated to respond to 45 khz. The better Grado cartridges also go that high. The top of the line Grado is rated to 70 khz. This is vinyl technology we have here with at least double the frequency response of digital methods. So no vinyl is not inferior in terms of frequency response potential.

We are of course talking about best case potential, but they did put this stuff out in the market. It actually worked.

Oh CDs have superior dynamic range, but like 20khz high frequency limit can you even use it? If the information is not on the recording does it even matter? LPs have enough for 95% of the time. I have a single CD with an extreme dynamic range where the quiet is very quiet, but turning it up to hear that part of the music makes the loud bit deafening. (KODO)

More recent digital methods have even better dynamic range. They actual use for that is in the recordings, not the playback.

Analog versus digital quality depends on production more than potential. In terms of best neither is. Oh MP3s suck generally as the priority there was compactness not quality. CDs, DSD, High res streams are fine.

And as far as tube versus solid lumps of semi-conductors well it is kinda the same. Computers and Class D amplifiers use MOSFET materials and those run at gigahertz. There are consumer vacuum tube amps that respond up to 100khz fine, and go down to 10 Hz as well. Either technology has far more potential performance than anyone can use.

Both types can have very low distortion. At normal listening levels the percentage is minuscule. Different voice and such is real but due to other things which to me are almost like black magic. My freshly retubed ARC amp sounds far more clear than before. It is still different than my old SS amp.

This stuff is not bad.

[rjzimmerman]

Why Oil Companies Are Walking Back From Green Energy. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

When oil and gas companies made ambitious commitments four years ago to curb emissions and transition to renewable energy, their businesses were in free fall.

Demand for the fuels was drying up as the pandemic took hold. Prices plunged. And large Western oil companies were hemorrhaging money, with losses topping $100 billion, according to the energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

Renewable energy, it seemed to many companies and investors at the time, was not just cleaner — it was a better business than oil and gas.

“Investors were focused on what I would say was the prevailing narrative around it’s all moving to wind and solar,” Darren Woods, Exxon Mobil’s chief executive, said in an interview with The New York Times last week at a United Nations climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. “I had a lot of pressure to get into the wind and solar business,” he added.

Mr. Woods resisted, reasoning that Exxon did not have expertise in those areas. Instead, the company invested in areas like hydrogen and lithium extraction that are more akin to its traditional business.

Wall Street has rewarded the company for those bets. The company’s stock price has climbed more than 70 percent since the end of 2019, lifting its market valuation to a record of nearly $560 billion in October, though it has since fallen to about $524 billion.

The American oil giant’s performance stands in contrast with BP and Shell, oil and gas companies based in London that embraced wind, solar and other technologies like electric-vehicle charging. BP’s stock has fallen around 19 percent in that time, based on trading in London, while Shell’s has climbed about 15 percent.

The market’s renewed acceptance of fossil fuels underscores one of the core challenges of curbing global emissions: Climate change poses risks that compound over decades. Scientists say every fraction of a degree of warming caused by fossil fuels brings greater risks from deadly heat waves, wildfires, drought, storms and species extinction. But investors are focused on making money over months and years.

“If we want to combat climate change, we need to make it in the firms’ and consumers’ self-interest to produce and buy the low-carbon alternatives,” said Christopher Knittel, a professor of energy economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The election of Donald J. Trump, who has falsely described global warming as a hoax, has led to even greater optimism about the oil and gas business.

The difference in profits that companies can make from extracting oil and gas and what they can earn from harnessing wind and solar had already swung sharply in favor of fossil fuels in recent years.

The median return on capital among some of the world’s biggest investor-owned oil companies, a key measure of profitability, topped 11 percent last year, up from negative 8 percent in 2020, according to an analysis by S&P Global Commodity Insights. The median return over that same period for the top renewable energy companies has stayed around 2 percent.

[startups-bar]

Facebook Ads Management: Expert Tips from the Best Performance Marketing Agencies in London

In the dynamic world of digital marketing, Facebook Ads Management stands out as a crucial component for driving brand success. As one of the most powerful social media advertising platforms, Facebook offers unparalleled reach and targeting capabilities. To harness its full potential, many businesses turn to the best performance marketing agencies in London. These experts not only excel in Facebook Ads Management but also integrate their strategies with PPC advertising, display advertising, and conversion rate optimization to maximize results. Here are some expert tips from leading performance marketing agencies in the UK.

Understanding Your Audience

The cornerstone of any successful Facebook Ads campaign is a deep understanding of your target audience. The best performance marketing agencies in the UK invest significant time in audience research. They utilize Facebook’s advanced targeting options to define demographics, interests, and behaviors. This precision ensures that ads are displayed to users most likely to engage and convert, optimizing the ad spend for maximum ROI.

Crafting Compelling Ad Creative

Creative is king in the realm of social media advertising. Top performance marketing specialists know that engaging visuals and compelling copy are essential for capturing attention. They employ A/B testing to compare different ad creatives and identify what resonates best with the audience. This iterative approach helps refine the messaging and visuals, driving higher engagement rates and better overall performance.

Utilizing Facebook’s Advanced Features

Facebook offers a plethora of advanced features that can significantly enhance ad performance. Leading performance marketing companies in London leverage tools like Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences to expand their reach. Custom Audiences allow for retargeting existing customers, while Lookalike Audiences help find new potential customers who share characteristics with the best-performing segments.

Integrating Facebook Ads with Other Channels

A holistic approach to digital marketing is vital for achieving comprehensive success. Expert agencies integrate Facebook Ads Management with other channels such as PPC advertising, Google Ads Management, and display advertising. This multi-channel strategy ensures consistent messaging and maximizes touchpoints with potential customers across different platforms, enhancing the overall impact of the campaigns.

Continuous Monitoring and Optimization

Performance marketing is an ongoing process. The best performance marketing agencies in the UK continuously monitor their campaigns, analyzing data to identify opportunities for improvement. This involves tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and return on ad spend (ROAS). Based on these insights, they make informed adjustments to bids, budgets, and targeting parameters to ensure optimal performance.

Implementing Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Driving traffic to your site is only half the battle; converting that traffic is equally crucial. Performance marketing specialist emphasize the importance of conversion rate optimization (CRO). They analyze the user journey on landing pages, test different layouts and calls to action, and implement changes that facilitate smoother conversions. Effective CRO ensures that the traffic generated by Facebook Ads translates into tangible business outcomes.

Tailoring Strategies for Startups

PPC for startups requires a different approach compared to established businesses. Startups often operate with limited budgets and need to achieve quick results. The best performance marketing agencies in London tailor their strategies to meet these unique needs. They focus on highly targeted campaigns that can generate immediate traction, providing startups with the momentum they need to grow.

Choosing the Right Performance Marketing Agency

Selecting the best performance marketing agency in the UK involves evaluating their expertise, track record, and the range of services they offer. Leading agencies provide a comprehensive suite of services that includes not only Facebook Ads Management but also PPC advertising, Google Ads Management, and display advertising. Their ability to integrate these services seamlessly is a key differentiator that drives superior results.

Conclusion

Facebook Ads Management, when executed by expert performance marketing agencies, can be a game-changer for businesses. The best performance marketing agencies in London bring a wealth of knowledge and experience, ensuring that every campaign is finely tuned for success. By understanding the audience, crafting compelling creatives, leveraging advanced features, and continuously optimizing for performance, these agencies help businesses achieve their marketing goals and drive substantial growth in the digital age.

[lenbryant]

(Long rePost) "Blood in the water"

How SAG-AFTRA strike will create global havoc for Hollywood - Los Angeles Times

SAG-AFTRA members picket outside Netflix in Hollywood on Friday, the first day of the union’s strike — and first such walkout in 43 years.

(Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Hollywood top executives figured they could ride out a skirmish with screenwriters reeling from technology’s changes to the industry.

But few executives were prepared for — or wanted — a strike by the industry’s largest union, SAG-AFTRA, which represents 160,000 actors and other performers. 

After talks over a new contract collapsed last week, throngs of performers joined writers on picket lines — plunging Los Angeles’ signature industry into chaos and further complicating what some fear could become a long and devastating strike.

Movie shoots have ground to a halt. A-list stars have bailed on film and TV marketing campaigns. Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy and other actors walked outduring Thursday night’s London premiere of Universal Pictures’ highly anticipated “Oppenheimer.” 

The upcoming fall TV season could sputter, devoid of new scripted episodes of “Abbott Elementary,” “Law & Order: SVU” and “NCIS.” And media companies that were already struggling to compete in the streaming era could see their fortunes further sink.

“There’s going to be a lot of blood in the water,” Jonathan Taplin, director emeritus of USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab, said. “This is not going to end well.”

Simultaneous strikes by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — the first joint work stoppage since Ronald Reagan led SAG in 1960 — couldn’t come at a worse time for traditional entertainment companies.

Their businesses haven’t fully recovered from pandemic shutdowns. Walt Disney Co., Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery have been grappling with heavy debt loads due to mergers, and also from ordering dozens of shows to ramp up their streaming services. All the while, linear broadcast and cable TV networks have witnessed a precipitous slide in viewers to Netflix and other streaming services.

“The economics of the industry are very challenging — the worst that we’ve ever seen,” veteran media analyst Michael Nathanson said. “A prolonged strike will only make things worse.”

Amid a nationwide rise in labor activity, Hollywood’s discord has taken on the trappings of a larger cultural clash, ostensibly pitting everyday workers against top wage earners, America’s 1%. 

On picket lines and social media sites, richly compensated industry leaders, including Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger and Warner Bros. Discovery Chief David Zaslav, are being portrayed as cartoon villains.

Outside Disney’s Burbank headquarters on Friday, a striking worker hoisted a sign that depicted Iger’s face superimposed on a hand-drawn Marie Antoinette figure, holding a raspberry-colored confection under the words: “How about sharing some of that cake, Bob?” 

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, center, and SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, left, outside Netflix on Friday. 

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, best known for starring in the 1990s sitcom “The Nanny,” has been celebrated among striking workers after her rousing speech Thursday to announce her board’s unanimous vote to call a strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the organization that negotiates on behalf of the media companies.

Actors are seeking higher minimum pay, increased residuals and revenue sharing with the streamers. They’ve demanded protections against the use of artificial intelligence to simulate background actors, known as “extras.” Writers have made similar demands, saying since the rise of streaming, midlevel writers have struggled to make a living wage.

“The entire business model has been changed because of streaming, digital and AI,” Drescher said. “At some point, you have to say ‘no, we’re not going to take this anymore.’”

The AMPTP defended the offer the group had made to actors, including what it said was the highest percentage increase in pay minimums in 35 years and a “groundbreaking” proposal for AI protections. 

“A strike is certainly not the outcome we hoped for as studios cannot operate without the performers that bring our TV shows and films to life,” the AMPTP said. “The union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry.”

It’s not clear when bargaining sessions with the actors might resume. No talks are currently scheduled. 

AMPTP negotiators haven’t met with the WGA in more than two months.

Taplin, a former film producer who wrote a book about artificial intelligence, “The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires Are Selling Out Our Future,” said the threat posed by technology “for all artistic production is gigantic.”

“People worry, in the abstract, about AI replacing workers but here it is, it’s actually happening,” Taplin said. “They don’t want to have to pay for extras anymore, so they could have a scene that has 5,000 AI extras in the background.”

Technology also has upset Hollywood’s hierarchy. AMPTP’s shifting makeup now includes tech giants Amazon, Apple and Netflix — companies that don’t have a tradition of collective bargaining.

Veteran executives said the group, even in good economic times, formed an uneasy alliance. Member companies, including Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Netflix, are more accustomed to battling one another for viewers and revenue. 

And some in Hollywood have wondered whether the AMPTP’s shifting makeup will stand in the way of a deal. 

When reached for comment, AMPTP spokesperson Scott Rowe said: “The companies remain completely united.”

But unlike past strikes, including the 100-day standoff between writers and studios in 2007-2008, no leading executive has emerged to help broker labor peace.

Director Steven Spielberg, left, Disney CEO Bob Iger and director James Cameron in January. 

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Wall Street already has placed its bets, punishing the stocks of legacy media companies. 

Since the writers’ strike began in May, Disney’s stock has fallen 13% to $88.62 a share. Paramount has dropped more than 30% to $15.96 a share, and Warner Bros. Discovery has declined nearly 7% to $12.40. 

Shares of WBD, which owns HBO and CNN, closed at $12.40 on Friday, down nearly 50% since April 2022 when the smaller Discovery absorbed WarnerMedia — a deal that saddled the company with more than $45 billion in debt. 

In contrast, Netflix shares have soared 36% to $441.91 since the writers’ strike began.

Netflix now boasts a higher market value — nearly $200 billion — than Disney, the world’s largest entertainment company, which is valued at $162 billion. 

“Investors are saying Netflix can weather the storm,” Nathanson said. “They make a lot of shows, and stack them up because of the binge-viewing model. They also have a lot more international production that they can import.” 

Disney’s boss, Iger, appeared on business channel CNBC last week from the annual media mogul conference in picturesque Sun Valley, Idaho. The executive, who returned to the company in November, acknowledged that he underestimated the challenges confronting his company — particularly in the traditional television business.

“The disruptive forces that have been preying on that business for a while are greater than I thought,” Iger said. “We have to come to grips with that.”

Disney already has slashed nearly 7,000 jobs this year in an effort to save $5.5 billion. And in a nod to the changing winds, Iger suggested Disney might consider shedding linear channels, perhaps even the ABC television network. 

The company, he said, also is open to taking on a strategic partner for ESPN. 

Disney’s sports empire remains lucrative, but it is plagued by the trend of consumers ditching cable and satellite subscriptions in favor of streaming apps. At some point, the company plans to offer ESPN directly to consumers — but Iger didn’t say when.

“We’re seeing accelerated cord cutting as people are dropping the cable bundle,” Nathanson said. “And advertisers are no longer supporting the networks as they have in the past.” 

Broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — are expected to be hit hard by the twin strikes because they are most reliant on fresh programming. Late-night comedians, including ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel and CBS’ Stephen Colbert, have been off the air since early May, when the writers’ strike began.

If the two walkouts are not resolved before October, there probably won’t be any new scripted shows produced until next year, according to company insiders. 

And that could be devastating at a time when traditional networks are struggling to hold on to viewers.

“The networks have sports and news but a lot of their constituents are there to watch the prime-time shows,” said Neil Begley, a senior vice president for Moody’s Investors Service. “Among those viewers, there’s an expectation that fall is the start of the new season. The networks are going to have to reach far and wide for content to fill those hours.”

Compounding matters, this year’s annual TV advertising market, when TV networks sell their commercial time for the new season, has been sluggish.

“Advertisers don’t know what type of programming they’re going to get with these strikes,” Begley said. “They’re saying: Why commit?”

Privately, company executives say their businesses won’t feel much financial pain for several months. Without widespread production, costs will be lower, which translates into higher profits — at least in the short term.

Studios also are expected to begin canceling TV writers’ overall deals to find more savings.

But eventually, networks and streamers will run low on original episodes and media executives will be motivated to reach a detente.

“You can’t get by without actors,” Begley said. “The actors’ strike gave more leverage to the writers.”

Analysts and veteran executives said the market is straining to support all of the streaming services — and shows to stock them — launched in the last five or so years. Hollywood, they say, could look dramatically different after the strikes get resolved.

“Consolidation is going to happen,” predicted Nathanson. “Perhaps the strike will accelerate those moves as the weakness sets in. Some of these players are going to get weaker.”

Times staff writers Richard Verrier, Yvonne Villarreal, Ryan Faughnder, Stephen Battaglio and Anousha Sakoui contributed to this report.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

STILL THE MOST (IN)FAMOUS GEISHA GIRLS IN THE HISTORY OF ROCK MUSIC.

PIC(S) INFO: (L to R): Spotlight on Kuniko Okamura and Michi Hirota, members of Japan's Red Buddha Theatre/dance company, photographed by American photo-artist Karl Stoecker for glam rock/art rock band SPARKS "Kimono My House" LP sleeve cover art, c. 1974.

MADELINE BOCARO: "Who were the two geishas on the cover, or were they actually guys in drag?"

RUSSELL MAEL: "The two girls were members of a Japanese dance company touring England in 1974. They are women, not men, not Ron, not me. We were very happy that Island Records allowed us not to have the name of the band nor the album title on the front cover. We thought the image alone would speak loudly enough. Try to get a company to go along with that concept today."

SLEEVE ART MINI-OVERVIEW: "The "Kimono My House" album cover, featuring two slightly askew kimono-clad geishas with absolutely no mention of the band at all, has been voted among the best album covers of all time in almost every poll taken. Beck named it again in the November 2001 issue of "Vanity Fair."

Island Records’ Marketing Director Tim Clark fashioned his promotional strategy for Sparks after the one he had implemented with ROXY MUSIC. “The very name SPARKS meant to us that the music would lend itself to a very glossy and arty feel.”  The photographer of Roxy’s glamorous album covers, Karl Stoecker and art director Nicholas de Ville were recruited to create the iconic cover of Kimono My House, though the concept of the goofy geishas was completely Ron Mael’s idea."

PART II: The two garish geishas on the cover of "Kimono My House" with smeared makeup and disheveled hair were the antithesis of Roxy’s classy covers. They laughed in the face of cover art, while at the same time making history as one of its greatest examples! One of them seems to foresee this – with a wink! The chosen cover photo was actually an outtake, shot near the end of the photo session.

It has been voted among the best album covers of all time in almost every poll taken. Beck named it again in the November 2001 issue of "Vanity Fair." The models, Michi Hirota and Kuniko Okamura were from Japan’s Red Buddha Theatre headed by Stomu Yamashta performing in London at the time. The geisha on the right is Michi Hirota, who also provides the memorable abrasive spoken Japanese vocals on the song "It’s No Game (Part 1)" on David Bowie’s "Scary Monsters" album, 1980."

-- MADELINE X (Madeline Bocaro blogspot), "SPARKS’ Iconic Album Cover – "Kimono My House," retrospective, c. 2015

Source: www.madelinex.com/2014/12/25/sparks-iconic-album-cover-kimono-my-house.

[scotianostra]

July 13th 1900 saw the birth of Elizabeth “Bessie” Watson in Edinburgh.

Born just off the Grassmarket, at 11 The Vennel to Agnes Newton and Horatio Watson, Bessie did not take long to make her mark in the world, at the tender age of 9 she combined her two greatest loves: bagpiping and woman’s suffrage, the latter makes her arguably the youngest in Scotland, if not the world.

When she turned seven, Bessie’s aunt Margaret contracted tuberculosis – an incident which would change the youngster’s life forever. Margaret lived with the family, and Bessie’s parents, worried that she might fall ill to the contagious disease, encouraged her to take up the bagpipes in a bid to strengthen her weak lungs. Her first set of pipes was specially-produced according to her diminutive stature as she was too small to properly inflate an adult-sized bag. The half-sized set of pipes was purchased from Robertson’s pipe makers at 58 Grove Street. “I hurried home from school and carried it, in a brown paper parcel down to my (music) teacher”, Bessie recalled. As one of the very few female bagpipe players in the world at that time – not to mention one of the youngest – Bessie took to her new instrument with great enthusiasm.

Bessie had more than her bag pipe playing to make her worthy of a post here, while walking with her mother through the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland, Bessie stopped to look at the window of the Women’s Social and Political Union office. Bessie became excited about the idea of women receiving the right to vote, even though she wouldn’t be able to vote for many years.

Bessie realized that her talents could help promote votes for women. She would run from school each day to play her bagpipes outside of the Calton Jail in Edinburgh for fellow suffragettes in prison.

At the first suffrage pageant she performed at, she wore a sash with the words “Votes for Women” as she performed with her bagpipes. At the height of the suffragette movement, Bessie was playing at major demonstrations and parades for the Women’s Social and Political Union, including the famous procession through Edinburgh on 9th October 1909. On that day a large crowd watched as hundreds of banner-laden ladies, wearing the suffragist colours of purple, white and green, marched down Princes Street before congregating at Waverley Market for a rally led by Emmeline Pankhurst. Watson rode on a float beside a woman dressed as Isabella Duff, Countess of Buchan in her cage! Isabella is famed for crowning Robert the Bruce at Scone when he seized the Scottish crown, she was later captured with the Bruce family and held prisoner in a cage in the open air at Berwick for four years.

Back to oor Bessie, who just a ten year-old she travelled to London to play her bagpipes in a women’s march on June 17th, 1911. J ust a few weeks later, for George’s state visit to Edinburgh, Bessie, leading the 2nd Edinburgh Company of the Girl Guides, received recognition from the king himself as she raised her salute. Having secured regal acknowledgement in time for her 11th birthday, Scotland’s youngest female piper continued in her quest to support women’s rights, accompanying inmates bound for Holloway Prison to Waverley Station and playing the pipes as their trains departed.

For the part she played in Edinburgh’s historic women’s rights pageant of 1909, young Bessie received a special gift from one very prominent individual. Christabel Pankhurst (daughter of Emmeline) came to Edinburgh to address a meeting at the King’s Theatre and Bessie was invited to attend. During the evening she was presented with a brooch representing Queen Boadicea (Boudica) in her chariot, as a token of gratitude for her help in the pageant.

During WWI, Bessie was just a teenager and used her talents to make a difference in other ways. She began helping the Scots Guard to recruit army volunteers by playing her bagpipes

In 1926 Bessie moved with her parents to a new house on Clark Road, Trinity where she would remain for the rest of her days. Following her marriage to electrical contractor John Somerville at the end of the Second World War, Bessie devoted her life to teaching music and foreign languages. Former neighbours recall that, even into her late eighties, Bessie continued to play her bagpipes at 11am every morning. It was something she had always done.

Bessie died in 1992, two and a half weeks short of her 92nd birthday. Over the course of her long life she had experienced almost a century of social progression and upheaval, and had played her part in changing the world for the better.

[otbsolutions]

6 Cutting-Edge Web Development Trends in London for 2023

Innovative websites balance creativity, performance and future-proofing across digital experiences. The latest web development requires ongoing learning due to fast technology changes. What are the popular frameworks, techniques, and interactions are people discussing for the upcoming year? Top UX Design Company London and coders are sharing the latest web trends that influence their strategic consulting for 2023 engagements.

1. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Web Design Services London says Progressive Web Apps are a game-changer. They bring together web and mobile apps' high performance and user engagement. Like traditional web pages, PWAs load quickly, offering functionality like offline accessibility and push notifications. Businesses in London that choose PWA technology will enjoy better user experiences, higher conversion rates, and lower development costs.

2. AI and Machine Learning Integration

More and more web design services London UK include artificial intelligence and machine learning in web development. They analyze users 'behavior and preferences and provide customized experiences for users. Whether through chatbots that provide immediate customer service, or through AI-assisted personalization of content and gifts, AI and machine learning are changing how companies do business online with their customers.

3. Voice Search Optimization

With voice-activated devices becoming ubiquitous, focusing on voice search is becoming essential. Digital Marketing Services in London believes that web content must be adapted to voice queries, which are more conversational and longer than typed searches. This trend is geared towards making your website's information easy to find through voice search, improving navigability and user experience.

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Motion UI is a rising trend among the London UI design Company experts. Animations and dynamic graphics are used to liven up web pages and make them interactive. This year, you will see more sites using inconspicuous animations, hover effects, and background animations to direct user focus and to enhance storytelling on pages.

5. Cybersecurity Enhancements

Experts in IT Consultation service London are discussing the need for strong cybersecurity in web development due to the growing threats in the digital world. It means using modern security protocols, doing regular security audits, and following data protection rules. Companies must protect their data and build trust with customers.

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Sustainability in web design is an emerging trend. Therefore, Web Design London firms have focused on developing environmentally friendly and energy-efficient websites. This means optimizing images and videos for quicker load times, using eco-friendly hosting services, and designing for less data transfer. It's about designing sites not only pretty and functional, but friendly to Mother Earth.

Conclusion

London Web Development Services stays ahead of tech shifts. They do this to serve clients better. They experiment, test solutions, and adopt new technologies early. They also choose the right time to implement these changes. OTB Solutions is the Best UX Company In London and a digital transformation expert. They combine strategic vision with tactical implementations. Their goal is to convert ambitious ideas into engaging online experiences. These experiences are future-ready and prepared for what comes next.

[unravellingsilencehq]

THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC HEREBY INVITES YOU TO THE SPRING SOLSTICE FESTIVAL

DATE: 20th of March 1986 TIME: 12hr00 to 00hr00 LOCATION: The Alleys of Wizarding London

DEAR FRIENDS

As the weather begins to warm and flowers begin to bloom, the Ministry of Magic felt it fitting to host a Spring Solstice Festival in the Alleys of Wizarding London. Please join us in celebrating the changing of the seasons as we embark on a journey of reflection and renewal for the year to come.

The Alleys will be decorated in full force with flowers lining the cobblestone as vendors line the streets with booths, ready to serve food or drink. The booths will be open for your perusal until 18hr00 when the sun begins to set and the lights strung above begin to lead down the way to Carkitt Market. Beginning at 18hr30 sharp, there will be a performance from The Playthings Company if you wish to take a moment off your feet. The Hopping Pot will also be open to provide any food or drink as festival goers enjoy an evening of live music and new beginnings.

We hope to see you there.

Best regards Millicent Bagnold Minister for Magic

We are proud to announce Unravelling Silence’s first event! The festival event will begin Monday the 20th of March and continue through the 26th of March! While not required, this will be a fast paced event and we highly recommend that all threads during this period revolve around the festival. We would like all threads to be wrapped up by 27th of March but this may be due to change based on how fast the dash is moving.

The event will start at 7 GMT on the 20th of March. Please keep an eye on the dash as we do have a few tricks up our sleeves and there will be some plot drops throughout the event.

Before the event, we encourage members to create a post displaying their character’s outfit for the festival to be judged by guest writer AURELIA ROOKWOOD. Posting an outfit will win your alliance one Faction Point. The best outfits will be featured in WITCH WEEKLY and will win you an additional Faction Point.

Please tag your outfits with ‘urhqevent’ and all threads relating to the Spring Solstice Festival with ‘event: solstice festival’. Please post a link to your outfit into the task channel on discord to help the mod team keep track of the Points and for them to be judged.

We look forward to seeing you on the dash, happy Solstice!