Ask Stephen: the virtual booktour

Only Stephen Fry could get away with this, yet he may be starting a trend: launching a book via Twitter, cinema, webcasts and, later, YouTube, no doubt. And The Fry Chronicles is available in five formats simultaneously: book, eBook, iBook, audiobook and iPhone app.

Mr Fry is launching the tome by appearing at the various UK theatres to do augmented book readings on successive evenings: the add-on part comes from interaction with audiences in the venue and at 60 cinemas with some of his 1.8 million Twitter followers.

Real-time Q and A, and the Twittersphere will send #recommendation tags to their exponential readers. Already the Chronicles has toppled Tony Blair's Journey from the top of Amazon's UK book chart. Very smart.

All this commercial success without stepping into a television or radio studio, chatting to features journalists (although Mr Fry is doing his bit the old-fashioned way, too), going 'on the road' past the Oxford-Cambridge-London triangle, or getting your hair wet.

Where Stephen leads, other writers will follow, especially if they have a Twitter fan base.


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Frank Sidebottom: he did it his way

Chris Sievey had an unusual life. Quirkily successful, he died a pauper. He is the only performer I can think of who was much less well-known than his papier-mâché puppet alter ego: Frank Sidebottom.

Frank was way ahead of his time, celebrating the naffness and desperation of celebrity and over-promoting the banal: he, like me, was born and bred in Timperley, Cheshire, and name-dropped the place at every opportunity.

Mr Sievey's originality spawned the careers of Caroline Aherne (Mrs Merton made her debut on Radio Timperley and Frank's Fantastic Shed Show), Chris Evans (erstwhile Sidebottom roadie) and Jon Ronson, and influenced the likes of Graham Fellows and Mark Radcliffe.

News of his death kicked off a viral campaign to pay for the funeral. The tsunami of affection has created a campaign for a posthumous single release (perhaps the mock football anthem 'Three Shirts on my Line') and a possible movie.

If the film ever got made it would have the potential to be a quintessentially mad English indie sensation: 'Born in Timperley', indeed. Fantastic.


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Radiohead: In Rainbows and the lack of gold

Millionaire, Thom Yorke of Radiohead has a bleak message for musicians wanting to make their fortune: the record-label based music industry will be dead within months.

The business model of In Rainbows may be open to every bussing muso, but the market is saturated and bands need ways to stand out from the crowd: principally, it seems at the moment, by being famous already (witness Radiohead, Prince, the Rolling Stones, and Simply Red).

Perhaps the hip-hop solution can be applied to the industry at large. The most famous rappers are becoming hubs around which new talent can coalesce (an early example being Eminem's involvement of D12 and Obie Trice). The hubs will be the nouveau riche. 

Like viral blog recommendations and links, the goodwill and praise of a famous artist (for a percentage cut) may be sufficient to drive download sales. And online musico-dramaturgs will emerge in greater numbers, carrying the John Peel legacy on to the web (say, his sons: Tom and William Ravenscroft; and Tom Robinson). The sharing of music is much more than playing records; the title DJ does not encompass the revised job description of these new gatekeepers to the music.

The recording industry is dead; long live the recording industry.


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Pentecostal muscle: a hip-hop career launched?

Scorchio day: made for lazing around, sunbathing, swimming, seeing off local vicar to pastures new with hog-roast buffet and the help of the BBC's Songs of Praise, and introducing a new performer to national consciousness: Forgive, known in civilian life as Toby Butler.

Performing the topical track, 'Straight Fire', for a live broadcast from All Saints, Peckham, Forgive is soon to hippety-hop into a professional career as a musician in a niche market: UK Christian rap. In a world of rampant illicit downloads, tanking niche distributors and retailers (e.g. STL, now under new ownership; Wesley Owen), difficulty in standing out to mass audiences through the white noise of the internet, and shrinking offline media platforms for original music material, how does a new artist like Forgive make a mark on the culture?

• Set up a bespoke website: check;
• Launch a record label: check;
• Write loads of material: check, launch of debut album, Straight Fire, in August 2010;
• Develop a viral marketing strategy: check, stealth-bomb blogs with relevant copy, upload videos to YouTube, plug review copy on relevant platforms (e,g. forthcoming Cross Rhythms feature), decent SEO plan to get 'Forgive' as top rank, say, for 'UK Christian hip-hop' Google search terms;
• Get radio airplay: check, future niche domination of the likes of UCB Radio and Premier Christian Radio; tomorrow promotion via the likes of the Tom Robinson Introducing 6 Music show of bands without corporate contracts;
• Grow a loyal fan base: check, local gigs supplemented by national tours to local churches and festivals;
• Become a rapper-in-residence: react to relevant events with slam poetry like a hip-hop version of Carol Ann Duffy;
• Reclaim rap for positive messages: check, role model status brings private and public responsibilities (Toby is married to Hannah);
• Name-check merchandise à la Taio Cruz (viz: Rokstarr sunglasses): check today's chapter and verse; tomorrow the hip-hop Bible to retrieve the hype from KRS-One's megalomania? (Well, if it can be translated into Klingon, anything's possible);
• Investigate new markets: check, develop relationships with relevant international websites (e.g. urban churches, rap blogs and websites), make sure viral marketing messages are not exclusively UK-centric. 

While the field is narrow, talent one hopes will out. Hopefully Forgive will not be forgetten in a hurry: he might even get name-checked in Rapzilla's next video roll-call ...


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When technology fails: a politician's lament

Gordon Brown has had a bad day. Comments he made in the back of a car moments after meeting a voter in Rochdale got spread around the blogosphere almost before he had finished speaking.

Was this a gaffe? It's too early to say. He'll get horrible headlines in the press, but the final television debate tomorrow is on the economy, his strongest hand.

At the very least the saga has used up a whole day's news cycle, which is not good news. But the story drowned out anything David Cameron and Nick Clegg may have said today.

Voters have strong views about immigration, like the lady in Rochdale, but sometimes the public's instinct for a policy is not the real picture. This is one reason why we elect politicians, to investigate problems and make informed decisions.

On the other hand, the public will be making the ultimate decision next Thursday in polling booths around the country.


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So what's next, Graham Norton

Graham Norton is following in the footsteps of Jonathan Ross, if reports are to be believed. It's likely that he will take over Wossy's Saturday morning radio slot and, maybe, he'll get the Friday night gig, too.

It's a changing of the guard that won't frighten the horses. Mr Norton is a very talented broadcaster.


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Heather from Hove

Unlikely celebrity pursuits include phoning radio competitions as a punter to win prizes.

Nobody told Heather Mills, who phoned Heart FM to win freebie tickets to see Whitney Houston.

A PR spokesman rapidly intervened to say the tickets were going to a good cause.


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Politics in a parallel universe

The latest poll after the debate, albeit a survey of mobile texters: Conservatives 33 per cent (248 seats); Liberal Democrats 30 per cent (101 seats); Labour 28 per cent (272 seats); Others 9 per cent (29 seats).

Nick Clegg may say, in a future debate [delete as applicable]: 'David/Gordon, I served with Charles Kennedy, I knew Charles Kennedy, Charles Kennedy was a friend of mine. David/Gordon, you're no Charles Kennedy.'

But this is, for the moment, heady froth after a successful Clegg debate performance. The interesting test will be what the polls say in a few days' time, the next official sample being published on Sunday.

Whatever happens next, it's all a far cry from the early days of Nick Clegg's leadership of the LibDems ...


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Auntie bites the bullet

What tactics do can corporations use when cornered by prospective asset-strippers? The BBC has gone for leaking pre-emptive strikes regarding self-imposed cuts on its radio, television and web output.

Strategically, this is clever. It creates an atmosphere where unions and audiences will be in rebellion, PR for the services that due for abolition will be generated and a prospective incoming Conservative government will come off looking like the bad guys.

No one can argue that the BBC needs pruning, but 6 Music, the Asian Network, foreign programming and sports all have vociferous supporters. And the corporation provides for a multitude of niches rather than raw, commercial monoculture.

The BBC may be calling the bluff of the politicians and corporate media owners as the alternatives to public-service broadcasting become clearer.

And the proposed cuts are not yet even official.

Mea culpa, darling

Tiger Woods, Ashley Cole, Vernon Kaye, John Terry ....

Apart from the obvious, what have they got in common?

A belief that skill in their chosen field of employment entitled them to ignore norms of social behaviour: a sychophantic entourage encourages such men to think they are powerful gods who can behave how they like with impunity.

Perhaps there is disillusionment that having reached the peak of success in sport, the media, etc., the buzz isn't what they expected it to be. So, they get reflected buzz from increasingly meaningless sexual encounters with women.

And I'm not sure what's in it for the women, except perhaps for star-struck bragging rights and the opportunity to receive the occasional expensive gift. I'm not sure many 'cheerleaders' agree to flings with the express intention to reveal all to the tabloid press.

So, Tiger Woods has now given a press statement of apology. It is step 9 in his therapeutic 12-Step Program for sex addiction. The common view is that his appearance was a necessary first rung on the ladder. Michael Douglas is proof that such treatment can work: he has been happily married to fellow actor Catherine Zeta-Jones since November 2000 and has been largely out of the media spotlight since then.

Separated at birth v2.0

Watching The Virtual Revolution on BBC Two, when not marvelling at Dr Aleks Krotoski's ability to find 7,439 matching Palatinate blue garments in the service of an-hour-an-episode's spatial and chronological continuity, has anyone ever noticed actor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and web pioneer Martin Freeman in the same room together?

Except perhaps when collaborating on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, otherwise known as the World Wide Web.

I've started, so I'll finish ...

The media reaction to Kajen Thuraaisingham's record low score on Mastermind of 5 points in total in two rounds has been interesting.

Along with Exeter University's 15 points in the 2009 series of University Challenge, Chase Simpson first question failure in the US version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and various Liverpudlian 'unintentional geniuses' on BBC Radio Merseyside's Hold Your Plums, Mr Thuraaisingham represents how Everyman might do on the show.

All are preserved for posterity, on YouTube and elsewhere, and are doomed to be remembered for their disastrous brushes with fame.

We laugh on the one hand at the quiz players' ineptitude; but realise, were we under the same spotlight, we may crumble with stage fright and achieve even lower scores. 'Rather them than me', we say to ourselves, while congratulating ourselves that we are not as stupid as they are.

Good Evans?

Chris Evans is a couple of days into his tenure as the nation's alarm-call on BBC Radio 2's Breakfast Show after the end of Wake Up to Wogan. He even received an answer phone message from Sir Terry that he played on air yesterday.

So how are things going?

• There has been criticism of the level of cross-promotion for the show on the BBC's television channels, hoping to stem any loss in audience ratings;
• The rehiring of Moira Stewart as the show's newscaster was hailed a success;
• The ratings figures are not in, and may well be delayed until they show good news.

But Mr Evans has seemed to cope so far, without wishing to add his own zany brand of humour to the mix just yet. He'll wait until enough TOGS have turned to COGS (or perhaps Chris's audience figures, CAF) before risking many new features, just to work out what listeners actually want from him.