BBC embraces Internet file-sharing network; it may get swallowed whole
By Gareth Powell
The news that the British BBC plans to make hundreds of episodes of its popular British television programs available on a file-sharing network has three separate stories behind it.
The first is the BBC has done a deal between the commercial arm of the company, BBC Worldwide, and the Java-based BitTorrent client technological firm, Azureus. The file sharing means that users of Azureus` Zudeo software in the United States can legally download titles, such as ‘Little Britain.’
This coincides with the second pieve of news which is that the BBC, which is paid for by compulsory subscription, is not getting a rise next year. Indeed, it is getting a slightly less money if you allow for inflation.
Many critics – Richard Ingrams in The Independent leading the charge – have asked why ANY money should be given to the BBC.
Good point.
The truth is most voters are number into paying the charge but with other free entertainment systems’ arriving almost by the hour its importance diminishes. And there is no doubt that the BBC is substantially overstaffed in many areas. Listening to it I find it difficult to support its quite extraordinary demands for a budget increase next year.
So it has embraced the enemy, the Internet, and this new moves shows that it sees the writing on the wall. If entertainment is available elsewhere for free why should you pay the BBC – protected by some of the most severely enforced and Draconian laws in the world = serious money for that which you do not need?.
The third part of the story is that there now is simply no television maker who does not realize the product must, at some time, be released through the Internet. All that is argued now is when.
Simultaneous release is being dabbled with. It will soon grown into a major force. A tsunami of telly.
There is now no major television studio that does not grasp the power of YouTube. It is almost a given that a feature show is going to release teaser clips for YouTube and major advertisers are going to make what you make care to think of as YouTube original clips running about two to three minutes.
Which means the whole balance of power is shifting. Instead of resting with monolithic giants who think that only way to deal with revolution is to keep shouting ‘piracy’ in a strangulated scream it will rest more and more with the creators. And they will know whether they have got it right within a week of releasing it to YouTube.
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November 1st, 2008
The BBC provides seven television channels (ignoring variations for nation and region, for example BBC1 Wales, BBC2 Wales) and 16 radio channels. Almost all of the programming broadcast by the BBC is produced by the BBC or an affiliate British production company and is original, the only exceptions are films and the occasional American series (like Heroes). The BBC, because of its charter, is committed to providing high quality documentaries, educational programmes, cultural review programmes, news and business programmes and everything that is simply not found in the commercial media (replaced instead by tired police dramas and programmes made entirely out of funny clips).
The BBC shows as much sport as it is able, including the tennis, snooker, football, the Olympics, rugby, the Commonwealth Games, darts, and much more. When sport is shown on commercial stations (for which you already pay a subscription and throughout which they advertise heavily) people are often required to pay even more.
There is no question that the BBC deserves the licence fee and more. The only question is whether we should allow commercial stations, such as cable and satellite television, to exist at all. For a much greater cost than the BBC, Sky (Rupert Murdoch’s satellite company) provides hundreds of channels, none of which make their own programming, either showing foreign programmes or repeats of BBC shows. All of the channels advertise heavily (up to almost twenty minutes of advertisements in an hour).
Really, they should have to justify their existence. Commercial television amounts to a parasitical money-making scam. For all the faults of the BBC, it is probably the finest broadcasting corporation in the world.
It is a shame that Rupert Murdoch’s pet journalists are allowed so vociferous a voice in calling for the removal of his only worthwhile competition. The man and his media empire is a menace, and should like McDonalds and Starbucks, be outlawed.