Government Stuff
DCMS and DfE have published their national plan for music education setting out their vision for boosting young people’s access to music, including £25m for instruments.
There are now 254,000 more jobs in DCMS sectors than pre-pandemic, according to new departmental stats.
The government has launched a review into the impact of Airbnbs and short term lets on local housing in holiday destinations. They’re calling for evidence, too. As a Cornishman I say HEAR, HEAR.
£82m is to be invested to upgrade 3,000 primary schools across rural England with superfast broadband.
The NHS app is to offer video consultations by 2024.
Less than a quarter of the government’s live events insurance scheme has been claimed, with music festivals deeming it unfit for purpose.
The Intellectual Property Office has determined that AI cannot patent inventions… in your metal FACE, robo… for now… Oh.
Broadband and mobile firms have committed to do more to help customers cope with price rises following a DCMS summit.
A £12m Digital Growth Grant is up for grabs for an organisation to run a new skills programme for scaling tech companies.
And you can also get up to £135k, jointly funded by DCMS and AHRC, for research projects which inform policies for culture and heritage capital.
The government has made it easier for low income pensioners to get access to free TV licences.
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Culture Stuff
Arts & Culture
The ACE-administered Emergency Recovery Fund distributed £105m to support the arts during the pandemic - but diverse-led organisations fared worst.
Art UK has catalogued and digitised the nation’s public sculpture collection for the very first time. Nice.
A portrait by Sir Peter Blake of everybody’s favourite farmer Michael Eavis has been unveiled and its set for the National Portrait Gallery.
For its big 2-0-0 (happy birthday, love Alex x), the National Gallery is to loan out masterpieces by the likes of Constable and Monet for the first time.
Creative PEC has launched a resource pack for local authorities thinking about investing in the creative industries via the Shared Prosperity Fund.
Plymouth College of Art has gained university status and will be henceforth known as the Arts University of Plymouth.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan is expanding the city’s Creative Enterprise Zones with £800k of new funding.
Arts, heritage and cultural organisations can apply to The Space for up to £14k of funding and support to produce a digital project.
Achates Philanthropy Prize, the only annual prize that celebrates first-time supporters of culture in the UK, is back for 2022 with a £10,000 kitty.
Banksy is to get an honorary professorship from the University for the Creative Arts. Will you wear a mask when you accept it, Ed? Wait… forget I said that.
Design
RIBA has named its best British buildings of 2022, including London social housing and a medieval dining hall.
A campaign has been launched to save the historic Barbican buildings Bastion House and the Museum of London from demolition.
This is blooming cool. Heatherwick Studio has unveiled a new unfolding glasshouse for a National Trust estate.
Kanye West has collaborated with Muji designer Naoto Fukasawa to redesign McDonald’s burger packaging. Devil in a new box.
Theatre & Dance
New Arts Council figures reveal that 93% of NPO theatre audiences in 2020/21 were white.
A fifth of performing arts workers fear that the cost-of-living crisis will force them out of the sector, according to an Equity survey.
After 13 years, Mary Poppins is grabbing the brolly and floating out of the West End.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Antonio Banderas have teamed up to launch a Spanish language production company. Joseph y el increíble abrigo de ensueño en tecnicolor.
Tourism & Heritage
A new statue of people representing the Windrush generation has been unveiled at London’s Waterloo station, making it the first National Windrush Monument.
Museums
Association of Independent Museums chats to Black Country Living Museum and others about how they’re reimagining creative spaces for the big screen.
Kids in Museums has just announced their shortlist for the Family Friendly Museum Award 2022.
Press, Books & Libraries
There’s now been a five year decline in trust in UK news media. You can trust this newsletter though. Trust us to truly scrape the very bottom of the barrel for jokes.
Newspaper print circulation in the US fell 12% in 2022.
Sheffield Hallam university has withdrawn its English literature degree and Philip Pullman leads the outcry at the decision.
Bernadine Evaristo, Hilary Mantel, and more pick their best summer reads for The Guardian.
Exhibitions and Events
The British Council and the Ukrainian Institute have kicked off the UK/Ukraine Season of Culture, a new programme to support the Ukrainian arts sector.
The V&A’s exhibition exploring the history and future of African fashion opens this Saturday. The Evening Standard calls it “succinct and celebratory”.
Amazing. The UK’s largest ever showcase of disabled artists is to take place in 30 museums across the UK on 2nd July.
A major exhibition marking the centenary of modernist William Turnbull’s birth is on at London’s No.9 Cork Street until 20th July.
If you’re planning a lil’ staycation in the UK this summer then here’s Artlyst with 12 exhibitions dotted across the breadth of our luscious green isles.
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Michael Lynton has worn many hats, having served as CEO of Sony Entertainment and Sony Pictures as well as CEO of AOL Europe. Now, as the Chairman of both Snap, Inc. and Warner Music Group, he's in a unique position to understand how the consumer mindset is evolving.
In this exclusive conversation with Alex Michael, LionTree's Co-Head of Growth, Michael discusses the characteristics that make for great leadership, as well as his vision for where entertainment is headed. Watch here and listen here.
And this past weekend, the Palm Tree Crew hosted the Palm Tree Festival in the Hamptons. Check out this brief chat with LionTree CEO Aryeh B. Bourkoff on the transformation, as well as the stability, of the music industry.
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Creative Industries & Tech Stuff
Film & TV
The BFI has published its Skills Review for film and high-end television, calling for £104m of investment per year and 21,000 extra crew by 2025.
The Beeb has laid out its terms of reference and announced an independent advisor for its upcoming gender disparity review.
The Sunday Times reports that actor Idris Elba could be set to partner with Miroma Group on a £1bn takeover bid of Channel 4.
TV ad breaks could get………………………… longer, under an Ofcom review of broadcasting rules.
The Academy has invited 397 new members, including Jamie Dornan and Billie Eilish. Duh.
She’s back. Cameron Diaz is coming out of retirement for a new Netflix film with Jamie Foxx - her first since 2014.
Fashion
Fashion brands make up 25% of ‘greenwashing’ complaints made to the Competition and Markets Authority.
The Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology has launched a survey on the impact of COVID, you know what and climate change on fashion and tech SMEs.
What’s that strutting down the runway? It’s THE FUTURE. Here’s The Guardian with the highlights of Graduate Fashion Week.
Music & Radio
Oh, Glastonbury. What a corker. The Guardian charts its stunning moments and NME gives its rundown. BBC audiences were up a whopping 116% on iPlayer.
Up-and-coming podcasters Barack and Michelle Obama have signed a new $20m deal with Amazon’s Audible after leaving Spotify.
Electronic artist Four Tet has won a landmark legal battle against his former label Domino Records over streaming royalty rights.
The Other Ed was the UK’s most-played artist of 2021. Wow, good x (that’s ‘good times’ but using the multiplication symbol like one of his album titles. No worries).
Tech & Telecoms
Two-thirds of young people in the UK have been exposed to harmful content online, says Ofcom, with only 16% reporting it.
Uhoh. Here we go again. The FCC Commissioner has written to Apple and Google asking them to remove TikTok from app stores due to “surreptitious data practices”.
Facebook and Instagram are removing posts in the US which mention abortion pills. And women are deleting period tracking apps amid fears of prosecution. Awful.
The screen time of primary school age kids went up by an average of 83 mins per day during the pandemic.
How many appeals do you think Meta’s Oversight Board had over decisions to remove content in its first year? Oh, only 1.1 million.
PARTY BACK AT MI… Oh. Airbnb is making its global ban on parties at its short term lets permanent. Booooo.
Wired looks at how China is clamping down on its own Big Tech.
Snapchat is to give 25 Black creators $10,000 a month to make more content.
The Guardian on how crypto went from BOOM to buy-high-sell-low-always-said-it-BUST.
Young people in the UK trust YouTubers more than MPs to tell them the truth about current affairs, according to a BBC poll.
Instagram is testing an AI tool that verifies your age by scanning your face. Blimey. Wouldn’t want to give this a go on a Monday.
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Appointments & Movers (busy one)
Natural History Museum director Doug Gurr has been appointed chair of the Alan Turing Institute; Sir Lloyd Dorfman has been named as chair of the Royal Opera House; Cathy Graham, music director at British Council since 2007, is to step down; Hannah Essex and Claire Walker will be the new joint CEOs of SOLT and UK Theatre; Daniel Weiss is to step down as president and CEO of The Met in New York; Paul Bascobert has been named president of Reuters; BBC kids chief Helen Bullough is to depart after a decade; Jane Spiers will be the next chair of National Theatre of Scotland; Wayne McGregor has been named as the next guest artistic director of the National Youth Dance Company; Ann Priest has been appointed chair of the Glasgow School of Art; the Beeb’s Lewis Goodall is joining Global as analysis and investigations editor’ former Radio 4 Today editor James Angus has left the BBC to join Saudi Arabia’s state broadcaster (!)
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Ed Stuff
Featured on BBC World Service to talk about whether it is time for major museums to return items taken from around the world; introductory remarks at the TISA Big Picture Conference
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...And Finally
A ‘zero star’ hotel in Switzerland is guaranteeing punters sleepless nights so they can lie awake thinking about the world’s crises. $300 a night? Free at home.
A little furry astronaut has taken a trip 14 miles up to the stratosphere on a balloon and then landed safely back on earth. One small step for a hamster. One giant leap for hamkind.
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