magic number at BBQ
March 15th, 2006While most media organisations are cutting back frantically to compete with the internet, the BBC is demanding “inflation plus two and a half per cent” from the government to prop up its ratings. The claim is absurd. The licence fee already yields a stunning £3bn. The BBC recently said it could lose 3,700 staff with no loss of broadcast quality; so who hired these useless people? The BBC bureaucracy is the common agricultural policy of the air, filling silos with overheads to cushion its eventual collapse into one gigantic pension fund. Come the digital revolution in a few years, the Cotswolds will be settled entirely by wealthy BBC pensioners all listening to Classic FM.
Who would have thunk it? A supremely great paragraph methinks, “the CAP of the air” wonderful.
Relatedly it seems that the BBQ is thinking of localising it’s free online content, now it would seem perfectly reasonable to give UK resident’s the choice of accessing online content via the license fee or on the same terms as overseas browsers – in fact any system that doesn’t introduce a BBQ tax on the sale of computers or broadband connections
The BBC is set to begin commercialising traffic to bbc.co.uk, two strategies the company is considering are charging overseas users to access the site, and running commercials on the site. David Moody, director of strategy ad new media at BBC Worldwide has asserted that “Now is the right time to look at commercialising international traffic to bbc.co.uk.”
The BBC has also used the services of consulting firm Accenture to investigate ways to “make money from people who use its services but don’t pay the license fee.”
Mr. Moody has hinted that even license fee payers may have to pay an extra fee for certain types of online content, for example they might have to pay to view video material after the expiry of the current seven day window period offered by the online interactive media player.
http://www.editorsweblog.org/news/2006/03/bbc_may_charge_for_web_access.php
March 15th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Why should a licence payer pay TWICE to see a programme that costs BBQ next to nothing to host as a file?
Accenture will find all the BAD things to do with OUR paid for TV content. Still, everyone will have access to torrents of BBQ programmes, even more so, as people switch to watching online instead of on the tube.
March 15th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
Well there’s no reason to pay twice – that is if you don’t pay the license fee in the first place (either using the online advertising subsidised version, or breaking the law) and do (or don’t) pay for archived content.
Presumably they are thinking of archive content in terms of an extension of/replacement for their dvd/video market rather than non-scheduled content.
March 15th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Selling files is not the same as selling DVDs. Essentially, TV transmission is the transmission of files. We already have the right to save those files on VCRs, so why should we have to pay for access to them? BBQ should, as a part of their service, store these files (transmissions) for us to watch whenever we want, at no extra cost.
Also, why has Accenture been brought in (at huge expense) to consult about this? Why have they not gone to the public to ask them what they want from THEIR service? Rhetorical questions obviously, but really, big business is not the person to ask about this. Any geek inside the BBQ will be able to tell them that they can make millions out of a googleads type of service directed at IPs that are not UK IPs, and we now know that these geeks exist, thanks to the apology of that producer.
BBQ is being mismanaged, it is not at the cutting edge in terms of its engagement with the new ideas. This is perfectly borne out by hiring Accenture to tell them that the sky is blue.