Farewell to ITP arms

Seems the ever-revolving door at ITP Business is spinning even quicker with the rumour that Sean Cronin, editor-in-chief of Arabian Business, has stormed out - apparently because of internal censoring. Another recent escapee is David Westley, editorial director of ITP.net. Could they both be heading up the Sheikh Zayed Road to join Richard O'Sullivan in Abu Dhabi?

Is the death knell sounding for City 7?

From a reader:

Rumours are flying that City 7 is about to go bust. Would anyone notice if it did?

Would you pay $300 million for ITP?

From a commenter:

ITP is up forsale. $300m and its yours. Serafin is touting it about, but noone wants to touch an overstretched media house in an economic downturn with ads orders being cancelled faster than those being placed. Maybe launching a mag a week wasnt so smart after all, as for those commitments in India, tsk.

Sure as hell isn't on my Christmas list.

Mental blocking

Whoops. ArabianBusiness.com has finally been blocked by Etishite. After a quick bypass of the proxy, we can't see anything offensive, unless its the exclusive about Dubai Mall being delayed again. Apparently the site falls foul of the Prohibited Content Categories. Does anyone know who has had their feathers ruffled over the website's content? Or was a Motivate minion a bit bored, and contacted the TRA to get the site blocked?

7 sent

From a commenter:

Can we get a thread going on City 7’s X factor-style hunt for a new women’s show presenter(s)? It’s proper car-crash TV, which is ironic as it’s hosted by Adam whassisname, the car safety expert. It’s required viewing if you can stand the sheer horror of watching a bunch of impressionable bints being patronized by a panel of cretins who all look like extras from a M&M’s advert. One life-affirming moment follows another as the bald guy and the two fat girls exercise their idiocy in a studio setting not too dissimilar to those that Al Qaeda use when they’re X-factoring their hostages heads off.

For sure. We didn't even realise City 7 still existed!

Impressionable bints being patronised by cretins? Sounds like a regular Tuesday night in Scarletts.

On-Air Swear

Virgin DJ Revin John has been fired for reading an "offensive article" on air:

Mahmoud Al-Rasheed, general manager of Arab Radio Network, told Arabian Business in an emailed statement on Wednesday that the presenter had been asked to leave for “inappropriate on-air conduct”.

John, who is originally from South Africa, is believed to have read an interview on-air which was offensive for religious reasons.

The sacking follows an interview John gave with Dubai newspaper Gulf News in June, in which he said he had “studied the Middle Eastern market thoroughly” before his arrival.

And a DMO commenter already has more:

Virgin Morning show presenter Revin John has been released of his duties with immediate effect. This apperantly stems from him airing a pre-recorded "joke" in which he communicates to God, asking Him what was on his agenda. The deep voice over replied "world peace, Madonna and Britney." That's just part of the gag, but you get the gist of it. It appears Haks aren't the only ones here who can easily get the sack for their "public" mistakes, eh?

Just a thought

Has anyone at ITP proofread the programme for the Media & Marketing Show conference, which is hosted by ITP and Arabian Business? Would have been nice if they could spell Saatchi and Saatchi right, and I'm not sure Joseph Ghossoub would be particularly overjoyed to be plain ole Jo in the agenda. Delighted to see Martin Newland is giving a presentation on What it takes to survive in Middle East Journalism. But what I really want to know is: what the hell are Forenoon Sessions?

And before you start squealing about how we're always slagging ITP off, we're not. We try and post other topics, but you lot end up at the same conclusion anyway. But, to be honest, schoolboy errors like this one are just asking for mockery.