Mark Bridge writes
Ah, the joys of multiplying by zero. (Not to be confused with the joys of dividing by zero; I remember an old Casio calculator that didn’t have an ‘overflow’ error message and would simply keep counting until the batteries ran out. But I digress).
I was reminded of my school maths lessons when I saw a news release from Orange UK this week.
Steve Wallage, Head of Sport Partnerships and Services for Orange UK was quoted as saying “Based on the surge in demand for mobile TV during the Ashes last summer, we expect viewing figures could rocket by at least 74% during the World Cup”.
The small print at the bottom of the page explained that Steve meant viewing sessions, not necessarily the number of viewers or the total viewing time, but let’s overlook that.
In fact, let’s overlook the statement entirely. There’s no mention of what the ‘viewing figures’ were in the summer of 2009, so the statistic is pretty meaningless.
Now, call me cynical, but I’m sure Steve would have mentioned those figures if they were any good. Yes, I know people do use mobile TV. And I know streaming over 3G is replacing the dream of DVB-H and DMB, offering much greater availability.
But an extra 74% of ‘nothing specific’? That’s not real maths, is it?