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 If YouTube can show video that streams without jumping and stalling, why can't the brains of the BBC? Ever since I saw BBC Head of Innovation Matt Locke descibe the BBC's scary 'Creative Commons = collapse of society / DRM walled gardens = good', strategy at the B.Tween conference a few years back, I've been worrying about Auntie's web future, and the threats to its position as the greatest TV network on earth (cultural bias alert) by not 'getting' the way the web works. Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing has, as usual, got there first today and said it better.
"We've trained people to watch TV. You can't turn around after 70 years and say, you have to stop using the best new technology to get the best TV experience. The point of the BBC is to create compelling programming that educates, informs and entertains. At the end of the day, it's the same shows. Why should how you watch it make a difference? Cory Doctorow
Picture one future - all of the BBC's content available to access online, on-demand at any time for every UK license fee payer - who have of course funded the library's creation. It's a mouth watering prospect and one that Greg Dyke promised before his early departure. If 'license fees' were offered to anyone in the world who wanted to browse at leisure an archive that spanned from Planet Earth to Monty Python, the Beatles to Dr Who, The Office to Cathy Come Home - the new income would doubtless offset any drop in DVD sales, and probably the recent license fee freeze too. By then allowing, say, educators and artists to access this archive to produce teaching materials and new works (see Bill Bailey below), there could be a massive cultral explosion in the UK, not to mention anyone else with access.
"For a minute there, the BBC seemed like it would enable a creative nation. Now it's joining the jerks in Hollywood who think that media exists to be passively swallowed by a legion of glassy eyed zombie audience members." Cory Doctorow
The alternative, the one that they appear to be heading towards, sees some content, available for a little while, made available on the iPlayer and locked to Microsoft products, for viewing on Windows software. It can only drive people to either watch BBC programmes 'illegally', or more probably (and worse), to ignore their output altogether and watch other more accessible services, for example sites that allow them to embed content in their own pages, as Viacom now does. Apparently Film Network, the almost-outstanding short film microsite from the Beeb (well it would be if the video would stream on a Mac properly, or allow embeds or full screen) that has had extensive PR and has a team of four working on it, gets just 80,000 unique users a month. A single YouTube clip gets more than that within an hour of it appearing on the front page. I mean, we get close to that a month here (60,000).
Of course the all-you-can-eat BBC content buffet would require huge flexibility from the unions and some nifty rights negotiating on the part of the BBC. But the alternative is simply people not watching (or listening to) their video. The BBC have long had the benefit of being in the channel 1 and 2 spots on TVs, a right which doesn't exist in the unbundled Internet. The coproration can focus on this loss of power and control over the audience, using the worst sides of technology to try to maintain its slipping grip, or see the immense opportunity that opening up the archive, and inviting the world to share in it has - both for us in the UK, and those in the world who haven't been lucky enough to grow up with it. The web media future is going to be overwhlemed with video set out to drive sales of a product, which makes the BBC's position as a huge producer of content whose sole purpsose is to 'educate, inform and entertain' incredibly valuable and important. Let's hope the management have the strength to not waste it through caution.
"The BBC exists to win this kind of fight in Britain. They exist to go where the private sector won't. For the BBC to throw its hands up and say, "We can't win this fight, we surrender, here we are, DRM forever, go buy some Microsoft," is nothing short of a betrayal. The BBC is dooming the Brits who fund it to being criminals. It's a bloody shame. "Cory Doctorw
If you have views on this subject, the BBC Trust is currently doing open consultation - submit your thoughts here. Here's the original post Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing:
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Many classic dramas can't be re-issued without a full renegotiation of actors rights, or you wait until almost all the cast are dead and then you can air them to death over golden freeview channels,like Dad's Army and similar.
Personally, I can't wait for the BBC to release Tutti Frutti on DVD, the drama centred on a rock and roll band touring Scotland. It starred Emma Thompson, Maurice Roeves, Robbie Coltraine and Richard Wilson, from a cracking script by John Byrne.
Heres what the BBC's own guide to comedy has to say about it:
Tutti Frutti
UK, BBC, Comedy serial, Colour, 1987
Starring: Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson, Maurice Roeves
John Byrne's hilarious comic opus charting the fortunes of the Majestics, the Scottish 'Kings Of Rock'. They are about to embark on their silver jubilee tour when lead singer, Big Jazza, drops dead. His younger brother Danny, home from New York for the funeral, reacquaints himself with the band and deputises for his late brother as the tour goes ahead. Also in the picture is Danny's old flame, Suzi Kettles, a sharp cookie happy to pick up the guitar; she too joins the band and from that moment their fortunes take a turn for the better.
This was a corking comedy-drama featuring dazzling dialogue and all-round knock-out performances. Robbie Coltrane was particularly outstanding as the rotund but sexy Danny, and Emma Thompson was appealing as the sharp, strong and independent Suzi. Their romance was played out against a background of funny, dramatic and touching scenes depicting a band, well past its best-by date, suddenly finding a new lease of life. Adding to the heady brew was Richard Wilson as the Majestics' hilariously dour manager Eddie (almost a prototype Victor Meldrew), and Katy Murphy as his lippy secretary Janis Toner. A joy.
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Amazing that it is just not possible to buy this series on DVD!!
It just underlines the need for the BBC to get all its act together over content.
After all, if the licence fee payers paid for it once and they would like to see it it again, why can't they pay to access it once more, on-line or on DVD?
It is high time Auntie BBC woke up!