BBC to Offer Videos Online?

[Analog Kid]

I don't want to be petty, but I do pay attention to where my news comes from and I think I'm right here...

I know you didn't say that ... but you did say the BBC was 'a government broadcast' which is incorrect.

"The BBC is run in the interests of its viewers and listeners. Twelve Governors act as trustees of the public interest and regulate the BBC. They are appointed by the Queen on advice from ministers."

"The BBC is established under Royal Charter. The current Charter runs until 2006. A separate Agreement, accompanying the Charter, recognises the BBC's editorial independence and sets out its public obligations."

How the BBC is Run

Anything that is paid for by taxes and overseen by Governors tapped by the Queen is government run. They have a charter that must be renewed periodically ensuring accountability. It may be a nobly independent voice within the government, but it's still run by the government.

If you don't own a TV (or VCR) then you don't pay the Licence fee in the same way as if you don't own a car, you don't pay Road Tax - or you don't fly then you don't pay Airport fees.

And if you don't make money you don't pay income tax. Even if I didn't drive and didn't pay gas taxes, I'd still say the highway system was government run.

Our airports are mostly private, but the air traffic control is government run which was made very obvious when Reagan fired the lot for a labor strike.

The BBC makes a fraction of it's money through the Licence fee. It relies more heavily on sales of it's programmes, Books, magazines etc. for it's income.

If it's a fraction, it's a fraction very close to 1:

(From the 2005 Governors' Report)
Income from License Fees-- 2940.3 million
Other Income-- 23.5 million
Total Income-- 2963.8 million

Percent of income from license fees-- 99.21%


This is in contrast to how NPR is financed, for example:
"...between one percent to two percent of NPR's annual budget -- comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts."
How NPR is Supported

PBS gets about 15-16% of it's revenue from the federal goverment.
PBS 2004 Financial Highlights

 

[Eniregnat]

Dr. Who... oh yea.

I won't justify paying for a TV or for cable or a satalight service, so perhaps this will allow me to do more than just hear the BBC news.

I can't realy think of any negatives. It shouldn't compete with the BBCs DVD sales.

If PBS did the same in the states, I wonder if people would be more williing to donate?

 

[neildmitchell]

BBC! Sweetie Darlings, I Need My Abfab, Pronto! Darlings!!
MMMM Is that all right with you, MMMM, Sweetie, darling, Sweetie Darling?
Bubbles, wheres Bubbles?
PATSY!

 

[Truffy]

The BBC is ... essentially a government funded broadcast.

B.S.!

The BBC is funded through the licence fee that's extorted from every UK TV owner, whether they watch the BBC or not. The government may run (or ruin) it, but that's not the same as funding it.

You then contradicted yourself later on

 

[winmacguy]

Most of the content already available through the BBC uses Real's video technology. It would be a shame if a large-scale video service like this, no matter how many people it is available to, required RealPlayer. I'd like to think they're almost extinct by now.

The BBC has done or is in the process of doing a large deal with Apple for Apple hardware to run and manage its programming content and provide online content for download which will mean using QT. The BBC wants to digitize all of their analoge libraries and archives on to Xserves. They will also be incorporating FCP into their software arsenal. This was reported on Macworld UK a few months back. I think I posted the link back then on Macbytes

 

[BGil]

The BBC already offers a lot of content online via Akimbo. The Akimbo service is now part of Windows XP Media Center Edition. Many shows are at a cost but a lot of others are free.

http://www.akimbo.com/press_rel_101405.html

DIGITALLIFE CONFERENCE, NEW YORK, N.Y. – Oct. 14, 2005 – Akimbo™ Systems will demonstrate its latest service, Akimbo for Media Center, to consumers at DigitalLife in New York’s Jacob Javits Center this weekend. Later this month, Akimbo’s award-winning Internet to television video-on-demand service will be available in two ways, on the Akimbo Player and on Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. Akimbo will support Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, including streaming high definition video to the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system as a media extender. The Akimbo Service will be available through the Online Spotlight feature in Media Center Edition 2005, where consumers can view all the programming available and sign up for a free two-week trial subscription.

Offering programming from more than 150 distinctive providers and over 75 categories of video content, Akimbo is a complement to existing broadcast, cable and satellite services – bridging the gap between broadcast and broadband. Akimbo’s collection of on-demand video includes well-known names like BBC, National Geographic, Discovery, and the Hallmark Channel, as well as hard-to-find specialty offerings, such as independent film from IFILM and Underground Films. At DigitalLife, for the first time, Akimbo will be showing Major League Baseball playoff games delivered the next morning in a ten minute condensed version to Akimbo subscribers. In addition, Akimbo will preview high-definition video capabilities that are enabled by Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

“Media Center is a perfect platform for Akimbo and a great example of how TV and the Internet are combining,” said Joshua Goldman, CEO of Akimbo. “With Akimbo’s collection of over 5,000 titles from 150 partners, we can serve interests such as foreign films and TV series, education, health and fitness, collections of popular TV shows and much more. Media Center owners will now have access to thousands of new shows and can experience the freedom of being in charge of what they watch.”

Akimbo’s proprietary “Queue and View™” technology delivers an onscreen program guide filled with channels, information, previews and viewer options, including full parental controls. Subscribers use the Akimbo Guide to select programs they want to download to view later at their convenience. Each time Akimbo subscribers turn on their TVs high quality videos are ready and waiting so that there’s always something good to watch.

“Akimbo Service for Online Spotlight provides a new way for consumers to get a wealth of entertainment programmed to suit their interests,” said Dave Mendlen, director of Windows Consumer Marketing at Microsoft Corp. “We’re pleased to work with them to offer consumers new ways to conveniently discover and enjoy new digital content using Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.”

According to a recent report from Endpoint Technologies, Media Center shipments will double to about five million units this year and double again in 2006. Akimbo has tailored its interface to take advantage of the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 television interface, with no additional hardware required. Because Media Center 2005 is able to stream content to Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles acting as Media Center Extenders, game players can view Akimbo programs anywhere in their house. Whether they receive the Akimbo Service from a Media Center PC or an Akimbo Player, subscribers need to have a broadband connection and a home network to receive programming.


---------------

Their channel lineup is very impressive:
http://my.akimbo.com/browse_channel.aspx

 

[superleccy]

Anything that is paid for by taxes and overseen by Governors tapped by the Queen is government run. They have a charter that must be renewed periodically ensuring accountability. It may be a nobly independent voice within the government, but it's still run by the government.

The "independence" of any broadcast network or news channel can only be judged relatively. Yes, the BBC has government connections, but at least they are plain for all to see. By comparison, how many so-called "independent" media organisations are heavily biased by the commercial and political entities that fund them? If you posed that question to Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore, their answer would probably be "most or all of them".

The "charter" is a double edge sword. On one hand, it does means the BBC is controlled by the government to a certain extent (eg, how shows like EastEnders and Grange Hill often watch like morality lectures on contemporary social issues). But on the other hand, the charter protects the BBC from the government, particularly in terms of journalistic impartiality. In recent years, the strongest and most powerful critic of the British government has been the BBC. The government occasionally tries to respond by trying to control, gag or discipline the BBC, but the government always just ends up looking stupid. Go BBC!!!

Furthermore, the BBC is despised by the for-profit media organisations in the UK, because the BBC has significantly better content and better distribution, and does not have to suck up to sources of private money. The BBC is seen as grossly unfair competition, and there are many large corporations in the UK that would love to see the BBC shut down, or at least reduced to the status of (say) "another ITV". This actually gives the Beeb a bit of cool "rebel status". Go BBC again!!!

So, I dispute your conclusion that the BBC is "run by the government", even if only to a certain extent. In fact, I'd argue that the BBC is one of the most independent mass-media organisations in the world... but hey, I'm biased too.

Regards
Superleccy

 

[littlejim]

Anything that is paid for by taxes and overseen by Governors tapped by the Queen is government run. They have a charter that must be renewed periodically ensuring accountability. It may be a nobly independent voice within the government, but it's still run by the government.

All I wanted to make clear is that the BBC isn't a government mouthpiece which your wording did imply ( ' goverment broadcast' ).
Wether the BBC is 'goverment run' is up for grabs : yes the government does appoint the governors every 4 years (although this will change into a 'trust') but on a day to day basis, the goverment has no say in the BBC output.

However, the BBC World Service (of which you did refer to in your original post) IS directly funded by the Government to the tune of £250 million or so, so you are dead right there. I've learnt something!

Now, wether the Licence Fee is a tax or a Fee is an argument that has raged for a long long time over here! My opinion is that because the fee is collected privately and goes directly to the BBC (unlike the Road Tax in the UK which, I believe, isn't set aside for the upkeep of the road system) then it is a fee and not a tax. But it's a fine line!

If it's a fraction, it's a fraction very close to 1:

(From the 2005 Governors' Report)
Income from License Fees-- 2940.3 million
Other Income-- 23.5 million
Total Income-- 2963.8 million

Percent of income from license fees-- 99.21%

Your financial figures are, I believe, incorrect - the BBC also made £625 million from Commercial ventures 2004-2005 but I agree that my word 'fraction' was very misleading!

http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/annreport/report05/BBC_94-135.pdf

 

[Analog Kid]

The rest of this post is worth reading, but I clipped it because, well, people can read it a few posts back...

So, I dispute your conclusion that the BBC is "run by the government", even if only to a certain extent. In fact, I'd argue that the BBC is one of the most independent mass-media organisations in the world... but hey, I'm biased too.

People seem to be reading different angles into my "run by the government" statement... My point was about whether the BBC can distribute their programs over the Net and to draw a distinction between the motivations behind the BBC and how it is run and the motivations behind a cable broadcast and how it is run.

To the question of independence, I don't believe it's a relative measure-- you are either completely independent or completely controlled or somewhere in between but saying that CNN is independent relative to Xinhua is hardly a commendation.

I wasn't trying to start some jingoistic flame war about the relative merits of different media sources. Commercial funding has at least as many pitfalls as public funding not least of which is that companies tend to actually pay attention to where their money goes. Personally I like like the voluntary public contribution model of organizations such as NPR, but the BBC model seems to work reasonably well. I like the radio station I listen to because it's a mix of NPR, PRI and BBC broadcasts.

I've pointed out that I think the BBC seems to maintain their independence and that I'd be an avid subscriber to their news broadcasts if they were available to me. Any bias I see, I can just as easily ascribe to the BBC as to the government. "Government run" didn't mean "propoganda machine"-- it's possible to be chartered by the government and remain independent.

"Government run" is different than "party run" even if there are very few examples of this distinction.

Though this wasn't my original point, I do think it's important to "consider the source" with any information you receive. None the less, my experience leads me to believe that the BBC is one of the premier media organizations of the world-- which, again, is why I hope their funding model and organizing structure allow me to gain access to their content even though I don't pay a stinkin' license fee to decode the radiation I'm bombarded with anyway (and which is rather attenuated in the case of the BBC).

 

[Analog Kid]

All I wanted to make clear is that the BBC isn't a government mouthpiece which your wording did imply ( ' goverment broadcast' ).
Wether the BBC is 'goverment run' is up for grabs : yes the government does appoint the governors every 4 years (although this will change into a 'trust') but on a day to day basis, the goverment has no say in the BBC output.

Understood-- I wasn't thinking beyond the funding and distribution model when I made the comment...

Now, wether the Licence Fee is a tax or a Fee is an argument that has raged for a long long time over here! My opinion is that because the fee is collected privately and goes directly to the BBC (unlike the Road Tax in the UK which, I believe, isn't set aside for the upkeep of the road system) then it is a fee and not a tax. But it's a fine line!

Yeah, Americans have had a few disagreements with your govenment in the past regarding what exactly constitutes a "tax"...

Your financial figures are, I believe, incorrect - the BBC also made £625 million from Commercial ventures 2004-2005 but I agree that my word 'fraction' was very misleading!

Oops! You read further than I did! Thought I'd found the numbers in the earlier table... I'll grant you the 16.3% from other sources.

 

[Bailey]

Hmm, probably are available because I know a ton of Americans who listen to BBC radio shows up to a week after they were broadcast, or can listen live via bbc.co.uk/radio

This brings the question - why do they get the content for free, yet im threatened with jail or a £1,000 fine for not paying?

The simple answer is:

You're not. You don't need a TV licence to listen to the radio. If you only have a radio, and no TV, then it's free for you too. And that's why the podcasts exist.

On another note, the BBC is unlikely to partner with iTMS, not unless there is at least one competitor that will offer the same service too.

 

[GrandMan]

The DRM and/or the iMP main program will be cracked in a matter of days of a public release, making the content available to all.

 

[nborders]

Why, oh why don't we have a TV tax in the US!!!!

PBS, is our closest, and it is by far the best TV on . . . TV. Lets hope they start adding some of their programming to their "members". interesting to see how they figure that out.

~n