Biography:
About: Dan Sabbagh writes about the media industry. He currently works at the Guardian, as Head of Media and Technology. He was a co-founder of the media news and entertainment website Beehive City, along with two former Times colleagues Adam Sherwin and Timothy Glanfield. He was media editor at The Times between 2004 and 2009 and was a contributor to the Guardian before joining full-time.
Education:
Career: Computing (magazine): senior reporter; Daily Telegraph: City reporter; The Times: Telecoms correspondent, media editor 2004/2009
Current position/role: Head of media and technology at The Guardian
- also writes/written for: until November 2010 wrote a column for Beehive City (the meeting of popular culture, technology, politics, sport, and the media business), archive here
Other roles/Main role:
Other activities: Was a Labour councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth, August 1999/May 2006; media advisor to Oona King on her bid to become the London Labour Mayoral candidate
Disclosures:
Viewpoints/Insight: 'The door is open: Guardian's Dan Sabbagh on a new approach to partnerships online' - New head of media and technology at the newspaper tells Journalism.co.uk about forging new relationships and why the newspaper needs to be 'a bit scrappier' online - Journalism.co.uk, November 2010
Broadcast media:
Video:
Controversy/Criticism: Served with a criminal libel summons - Telegraph owners use French courts in libel case - in April 2005 (with Times editor Robert Thomson) by the Barclay Brothers. Summons later dropped following a brief Times' statement in February 2007. See also - why Barclays were wrong to sue by Roy Greenslade
Awards/Honours:
Scoops:
Other:
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Articles:
- Much hype and expectation, but the Digital Economy Bill will hardly set the airwaves alight - The Digital Economy Bill has been drafted after two documents, umpteen Ofcom reviews and a mounting sense of cluelessness - 20th November 2009
- Call for Test matches to be free could bowl a googly - David Davies will make recommendations on whether changes should be made to the events that have to be free to air - 13th November 2009
- British-style regulators would cut US down to size - Suddenly, it seems that any old transactions will get referred upwards, and perhaps be blocked for competition reasons - 6th November 2009
- Mandelson’s piracy tactics leave Tories with a dilemma - James Blunt, who wrote to Lord Mandelson on the vexed subject of internet piracy, called the internet service providers “drug pushers” in an e-mail that the minister saw fit to publish this week - 30th October
- Activision aims to mix its bedroom guitar heroes into a new breed of DJs - However, conflict between the makers of music games and the leading music labels over payment of royalties continues - 23rd October
- Predicting trends produces a tyranny that is hard to shake - Online publications that are aimed at a professional audience have amply demonstrated an ability to retain subscriptions - 16th October 2009
- Free v paid-for: the media's walking wounded fight it out - They're all swapping sides: papers turning into freesheets, TV channels that are thinking of charging. Will anyone win? - 9th October 2009
- Wanted: new chairman for ITV, with experience - There is a risk that ITV might appoint a chairman who might please the City but who has no obvious affinity for the medium - 2nd October 2009
- Media owners sense an advertising recovery - An encouraging blip in September is suggesting that newspaper advertising is not far from returning to a growth pattern - 2nd October 2009
- Yesterday, music’s troubles seemed so far away - The decline in music sales has been so relentless that some in the industry are demanding desperate measures - 25th September 2009
- Minister who stole Tories’ clothes is still naked - Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw launches radical shake-up for BBC but is unlikely to have enough time to see plans bear fruit - 18th September 2009
- A Tory dilemma: how to tame the BBC - Bringing the Corporation to heel is just one of the many broadcasting problems facing a future government - 11th September 2009
- Hunt is on for risk-free broadcasting policy - Jeremy Hunt's policies on broadcasting make for good politics, but there are few votes to be won there - 11th September 2009
- In the shadow of Big Brother, will Andy Duncan be evicted? - Channel 4 remains a small, quirky broadcaster overly reliant on a reality show and with no clear commercial strategy - 31st July 2009
- British film industry needs a change of direction - If the state is going to come to the aid of our movies, the cash would be better spent on building production companies - 24th July 2009
- Any volunteers for a TV station where you are? - 17th July 2009
- Game, set and match to sport online - Technology has been a boon to office staff who don't want to miss out on the joy of everyday life while they are at work - 10th July 2009
- How to harness the power of the TV star machine - All the cash is behind celebrity-based brands . . . The challenge for Cowell and Green is to harness enough of it - 3rd July 2009
- From the Ten O’Clock News to a night at the opera, Tony Hall is taking it to the people - ROH chief executive is keen to show that public money that his organisation receives helps widen audience for art form - 27th June 2009
- Analysis: perks paid for by you and me - expense claims of BBC executives reveal rather more than just a culture of occasional rewards for popular entertainers - 26th June 2009
- A broadband tax will never connect with the public - It's not the money, though; it is only 2 per cent on the average phone bill; but it is the principle that is annoying, particularly when it is imposed by a Government that is weak - 19th June 2009
- Hard to prove Mark Thompson’s tough talk about BBC pay - Graham Norton might say working for the BBC is a privilege and will work for less, but he might not provide the pay slips to prove it - 12th June 2009
- Mediapolis: ITV1 ... RTL ... Canvas - Andy Burnham hosted journalists this week in his ministerial office, ahead of the Digital Britain White Paper - 5th June 2009
- Setanta needs a team effort to carry on - The sports broadcaster will have to do more, its financial problems are so serious that its chances can really only be rated at 50-50 - 5th June 2009
- Has Britain got talent to run ITV? - The candidate best suited to take over the reins at the broadcaster has to be someone part geek, part creative, part salesman - 22nd May 2009
- Tone of authority proving a winner for Radio 3 under Roger Wright - Controller Roger Wright has kept this niche of classical music unashamedly specialist and serious for more than ten years - 22nd May 2009
- Monocle focuses on paying readers - The magazine has survived with a commercial strategy that is as smart as it looks, with a worldwide sale of about 150,000 an issue - 15th May 2009
- Bragg’s baby is first cultural victim - It would feel better if ITV kept The South Bank Show going, but this is not a time for broadcasters to guarantee poorly rating programmes - 8th May 2009
- Days numbered for Independent’s independence - Eleven years after taking over left-leaning national newspaper The Independent, it looks like Sir Anthony O’Reilly will lose control - 1st May 2009
- Susan Boyle and the ITV dream? - In that one performance of I Dreamed a Dream, the 48-year-old unkissed Scot has created the world's first global television show - 24th April 2009
- The strong will survive, let the weak go to the wall - A crisis for local newspapers? What in fact is happening is that the weaker titles, the weaker companies, are the ones in trouble - 17th April 2009
- Serious viewers are hooked on drugs and shoot-ups - Britain’s elite are trapped in a love affair with American television as sensible people find pleasure in drug-dealing and shooting - 10th April 2009
- A little war and Peace in The Guardian boardroom - The Guardian Media Group could do with a bit more rational management, as a glance at its performance figures will show - 3rd April 2009
- Harking back to the 30s not the only way ahead - The New Deal of the Mind requires more than financial inspiration. It also crucially needs some creative thinking on policy - 27th March 2009
- A big farewell to old certainties - Those attending Tim Bowdler’s official retirement party were too polite and too mindful of their own share prices to be critical - 20th March 2009
- Billy Bragg sings out for short-changed stars - who controls and pays for intellectual property in an era when workers who use their brain dominate the economy? - 13th March 2009
- The British are coming - and bringing Wife Swap - One might complain that a slew of reality shows hardly represents the high point of British civilisation... - 27th February 2009
- Centaur Media disproves myth that trade press will skip media pain - The publisher's model, in which subscription titles dominate, makes it vulnerable because of its dependence on advertising - 21st February 2009
- Save the narwhals, but Blue Peter is facing extinction - If anybody symbolises what everybody agrees the BBC should be about, it’s Sir David Attenborough - 13th February 2009
- Digital policy could do with a dose of ambition - What Digital Britain lacked, amid the flurry of initiatives, was any sense of what the end of the next decade might look like - 6th February 2009
- Viagogo: internet is just the ticket - Not everybody likes the idea of a ticket being a commodity, but touting is hard to stamp out and there are times when it is necessary - 6th February 2009 (Wikipedia viagogo)
- Why the BBC was right not to show the Gaza charity appeal - Conversations about the Middle East can become personal and sometimes heated alarmingly quickly, even among friends - 30th January 2009
- Why Channel 4 and BBC whisper sweet nothings - The real loser in this saga of unrequited love among broadcasters is Five, where advertising revenues are down 27 per cent - 23rd January 2009
- The Evening Standard's Jonathan Harmsworth recognises reality - The Evening Standard has failed to make money for years and has become more vulnerable as freesheets have bitten into its audience - 16th January 2009
- Going back to the future is a hazardous enterprise - Buying into Facebook at an implied $25 billion is as much an optimistic purchase as splashing out on a pair of red jeans - 9th January 2009
- Channel 4 on knife-edge - Culture Secretary Andy Burnham ponders funding - 2nd January 2009
- Hold the front page: there could be an advert - It's hard to know what to look forward to in 2009 — but it is obvious in newspapers the big story will be about one thing: debt - 19th December 2008
- Grim options for BBC in C4 quest - Some of the BBC licence fee may be lopped off for Channel 4 or its commercial arm, Worldwide, may be merged into '4 Worldwide' - 12th December 2008
- Britain calls the tune to beat economic malaise - In music, what happens in the UK matters, and Britain's musical influence on the US has not been greater since The Beatles - 5th December 2008
- Long-term planning is crucial in fight for survival - Better to think ahead five years than panic and stock up on cheap sweets in pursuit of some short-term strategy delivering a headline that only lasts until tomorrow - 28th November 2008
- Printed word still has the power - One thing that the Sun's Haringey council petition shows is that it is the mass media that generate the impulse to complain - 21st November 2008
- Independence of The Independent is looking fragile - The Independent will lose a little over £10m this year - an unhelpful cash-drain on a parent company burdened with £1.2bn of debt - 14th November 2008
- In this high-speed business, a week of dithering is a luxury no one can afford - What a shambles! Under public pressure, the BBC has lost one of its star names and its best radio controller – and all without a semblance of a sensible process - 31st October 2008
- ITV and Channel 4 need new ways to survive - 17th October 2008
- Robert Peston: the prophet who can move markets - on the influence of the BBC's business editor and poster boy of the financial crisis - 10th October 2008
- Hard times may change how we all get our kicks - Certainly, for the moment, the entertainment business is showing resilience amid the crunch, not just in the UK, but in the US - 3rd October 2008
- Can the Lone Ranger rescue Entertainment Rights? - 27th September 2008
- Lloyds summarises political situation - The short-term volatility of Lloyds shares is a good indicator of current politics; it is harder to see farther than a fortnight away - 19th September 2008
- Setanta employs wrong tactics for Croatia game - 12th September 2008
- Only the deluded truly believe that the worst is over - 5th September 2008
- The future of TV comedy is no laughing matter - As audiences fragment, the question is: how long can stand-up comedy on TV last? - 22nd August 2008
- TV advertisers target new technology - Life on the sofa could be very different in five years for the glassy-eyed viewer as media companies vie for their attention - 15th August 2008
- It's life, but not as we knew it - Ofcom's figures show that despite all the distractions offered by the internet, Britons remain wedded to the small screen - 14th August 2008
- What might have been for ITV - Virgin Media's generous bid offered the prospect of a combination of its more defensive subscription revenues with ITV’s content - 8th August 2008
- Defusing the download minefield - Three strikes and we'll give your broadband a squeeze may not sound like punishment, but it is actually a sensible idea - 25th July 2008
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