Post by Media Bandar on Oct 7, 2004 15:49:30 GMT
Copied and pasted from Asians Media website.
Media Bandar was intrigued by comments made by Moiz Vas of Brasian who, defending his client Raghav's press coverage, said "In one particular print media we had substantial editorial everywhere for 8 weeks consecutively." Bandar wonders who that could be... but has a sneaky feeling it might be Eastern Eye, who incidentally are also media partners of Brasian for the Asian Music Awards.
Of course Bandar would not dare to suggest a bit of you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours quid pro quo is going on, or that there would be any bias when Raghav's album got rated 4.5 out of 5 by the same publication. This is Asian media of course, where journalistic integrity is supreme.
No disrespect to Raghav know-what-I-mean, but it's not like there are other Asian music artists to write about? The poor guy must be sick of seeing his own face in print so many times. Now of course Jay Sean's single is coming up and it's not like Amar Singh (editor, Eastern Eye) and Rishi Rich (Jay Sean's producer) are cousins or anything. Oh they are? You can probably guess the rest.
Forget all the other rah-rah, the Mobo awards also raised controversy in another unlikely corner of Asian media. It seems more than just a few people were a bit peeved Eastern Eye did very little to promote the Asian artists who were nominated for a category: Raghav (bizarrely) and Panjabi Hit Squad. Instead what angle did this esteemed paper take? That Jay Sean, Rishi Rich and others were annoyed for not being nominated. Hmmm....does Bandar detect a pattern here?
Free booze flows in the media like the river Nile but woe betide the person who goes over the top. From his network of sources Media Bandar hears our friendly neighbourhood DJ Adil Ray has been a naughty boy. Apparently Adil has got his knickers in a twist over the fact that BBC Radio WM's new Masala show on Fridays and Bobby and Nihal's new slot on Wednesdays go up against his nightly fix on BBC Asian Network.
So, the story goes he got drunk at an event in B'ham and ended up in a heated argument with Keith Beech, Managing Editor of BBC WM. Bandar can only guess what that might be over. Head of Desi DNA Tommy Nagra took him outside and told him to calm down, but some say he swore at Tommy too. Uh oh... not a good career move. Although, word is rumours of an end to Adil's television career are exaggerated. As one industry insider was heard saying "Adil is a good bloke but I've told him 'nuff times - mate you are the world's worst drunk'.
Media Bandar heard recently word on the street was that Zee TV's UK incarnation of 'item bomb' did exactly that - it bombed. The idea was that a talent competition would be held to choose a girl to dance opposite some big Indian actor. It was promoted and the Bollywood fanatical girls would have lapped it up except for one problem, they didn't get to hear about it. No time to tell everyone about it apparently.
So a grand total of about... well... 10 girls apparently turned up to the Birmingham heats, not a lot considering every Indian mum and her pet gerbil in the country is glued to the bloody channel every time you go around their house for chai and samosas. C'mon Zee, you can do better!
Regular column readers might like the fact that Farah 'comical' Damji has been rearing up her head again and Media Bandar has caught some more gossip. Don't forget though we still haven't heard anything on the ill-fated 'Asians in media' magazine she was supposed to have been launching. Like all the money she owes, it must have gotten lost somewhere eh?
Trying to latch on to the publicity for Bride and Prejudice, Damji has apparently been trying to tell others that her re-named magazine, Another Generation, is in fact new and that she is coining a new phrase - 'Bollystan'. Don't know what the bloomin' heck it means but it has as much chance of catching on as Indoshi- whoops, I meant Indobrit. Anyway, so a press release was probably sent out to this effect.
It backfired when one or two articles emerged in Indian media claiming a new magazine was launched in London called Bollystan, again with no clue what it meant though. But hey the cover has Aishwariya Rai on the front, who cares? Aahhh... the joy of seeing a PR stunt backfire.
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Media Bandar's Diary is a concept based on the Media Guardian Monkey. The views express by Bandar may not necessarily agree with those of Asians in Media.