The BBC’s attempt to build a Netflix-style service was snuffed by regulation
wired.co.uk
wired.co.uk
I'm not sure they got it right here but there is a valid reason for this kind of regulation.
> The British TV industry wouldn’t see an on-demand service for nearly another decade.
I'm sorry, what? There was an on demand service before this, as talked about in the article. And it absolutely didn't take until near 2019 to see others appearing.
> Netflix would’ve never stood a chance of getting its current market penetration [in the UK],” says the BBC source. “All the big players would have had the market covered for streaming video-on-demand (SVOD)
That's kind of the point though, isn't it?
The BBC have responded by pointing out that government regulators killed off their attempt to work with competitors to produce such a service over a decade ago (Project Kangaroo), and now they’re being criticised by government for not being one.
Is it? I have been exposed a bit to Netflix and the content is a lot of filler with the occasional interesting movie. But not nearly enough value for what it costs in my opinion, and with the very limited programming it would become boring quickly.
> Is it? I have been exposed a bit to Netflix and the content is a lot of filler with the occasional interesting movie.
The comment you quote says "the way people want to consume", but your comment is about the content itself.
I think most people want the on-demand style, but of course everyone also wants there to be good content. Content being equal, do you think on-demand content is not the way most people would want to consume it?
In contrast, channels have content in sync with the rhythm of the day and the hour. You only have to choose the channel. I wish I could flick through channel streams at the speed I can flick through broadcast channels.
While I wasn't there at the time, stories have been that iView faced government queries at the time for "wasting money" (and after sometime, the govt relented and funded it in 2013). This back and forth went on and on until today.
Now, of course, the stories in the media is whether or not we should impose a quota on Australian content on external streaming services. All I can do is give that Annoyed Picard reaction.
I don't think they're being criticised by government for not being a Netflix-style VOD service. The debate is as to whether they should be funded by the licence fee with all the restrictions that come with it to allow competition in the market vs. letting them do their own thing without the licence fee. The government do appear to be coming down on the side against the licence fee, but that could just be a negotiating position, at least for the foreseeable.
No one as far as I can see is making the argument that a licence fee funded broadcaster should have taken that money and used it to launch a Netflix competitor.
Of course, a Rupert Murdoch type who wanted to shut down the BBC would argue that low viewing figures prove the injustice of forcing people to pay for a service they don't use, and therefore the justice of privatising; while high viewing figures prove the viability of the BBC as a subscription service, and therefore the viability of privatising.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/24/bbc-losing-gener...
The BBC's problem is not iPlayer vs Netflix. It's that they aren't producing enough compelling content anymore to justify the tax that funds them. Additionally they keep angering ministers, who think they're biased and out of touch.
The government has always wanted to control the state broadcaster, and a decade ago people would've fought tooth and nail to keep the BBÇ alive. The decline in quality has been slow, but obvious from all sides, from sport coverage, to factual output, and most notably from the news and political front. Those people that would've fought for the BBC years ago are now those that want its funding removed entirely, and in my opinion it's a master-class in control from the Tories. The left have been played hard by the BBC.
You're absolutely right in that it's not an iPlayer vs Netflix debate. It's an output issue, and that output has been eroded over 5-10 years.
https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/...
The over 75s grant has been cut a little bit but the actual gross revenues are higher now than they used to be. Funding isn't the BBCs problem. It is able to tax a growing population - that's the definition of increasing revenues. With billions of pounds to splash around it's really hard for them to plead poverty.
The bigger issue is they produce a lot of content but it's increasingly narrowly targeted to, basically, the sort of thing Lib Dem voters in London like (and think other people should like). That's a small minority of the population.
I'm also not quite sure on the over 75s licenses being marked as "cut a little bit"
> The compensation paid to the BBC by government for the current 4.55 million free TV licences (introduced in 2000) is being phased out in three steps – falling from £655m in 2017-18 to £468m in 2018-19 and a final £247m payment in 2019-20. At that point, the value of the free licences could be £725m.
https://rts.org.uk/article/tony-hall-calls-increased-funding...
That's huge drop unless those numbers have changed, but even the plan of charging some for the license put the figure at near £250M. Combined with the S4C change that's, what, over 10% of your figure as a cut without converting to real terms.
I had a bit of a rant on HN the other day about this practice in the UK of describing the public sector as being 'cut' when graphs of their budget are going up and to the right. People do it a lot with the NHS and it distorts the political debate, in my mind, because of course people hear the word "cut" and think the amount of available money is going down when it's actually going up.
The loss of the money for the over-75s is a real cut. But so far it hasn't counter-balanced the increase in revenue from general population growth, or at least that's how I interpret the graphs on the page I linked to, which are going up and to the right. Additionally the BBC spends considerably more than it gets in license fee, I assume that's based on commercial revenues as (AFAIK) the BBC doesn't take out loans or get into debt. When those revenues are also considered its expenditure has been growing steadily since 2011.
Tony Hall's argument is basically that Amazon/Netflix can outspend them. Well yeah, but Netflix is a temporary phenomenon given their enormous burn rates and the spending of Amazon/Apple is somewhat calibrated towards matching it. I'm not convinced those levels of spending on content will last forever, myself. But also the BBC is allowed to sell its programs internationally, just like Netflix and Amazon do. It generates significant revenues from that as the graphs show. What stops them competing with these firms, exactly? They play in the same league.
Part of the justification the BBC gives for its existence is that it does not have to simply duplicate what commercial providers do. It feels like they try to argue both sides of the issue: the license fee is good because it frees them from the need to do populist stuff and lets them focus on worthy but expensive programming like documentaries and news, but it's also bad because it means they can't compete (anymore) with commercial outlets on producing populist dramas.
Rather than demand more money, maybe they should consider their focus. Apple/Amazon/Netflix don't attempt to fund worldwide journalism or radio. If the BBC is finding itself faced with better competitors, perhaps it should re-allocate resources towards the stuff it does that's unique.
You must have a license to watch broadcast TV or use the BBC iPlayer (the online BBC-only streaming service). If you only use your TV(s) with a games console, to watch recorded content or streaming content over the Internet, you don't need to pay it. You are not required to provide access to an inspector from TV Licensing to confirm that your TV isn't hooked up to an aerial or satellite box, but it makes life easier if you do.
The license fee costs £154.50 a year, or £52 if you only have a black and white TV (lord knows how given we're now 100% digital), but the government pays it for you if you're over 75 years of age.
This produces an income of ~£3.5 billion a year, and broadly breaks down into 55% spent on TV broadcasting, 17% radio broadcasting, 10% for the BBC World Service and the rest of it goes on the website, various apps, collecting the fee itself and the transmitter network across the country used by all terrestrial broadcasters, not just the BBC. It also pays slabs of cash into the EBU who produce the Eurovision Song Contest, amongst other things...
This results in nine national TV channels, 10 UK-wide radio stations, six national (i.e. England, Wales, Scotland, NI only), and 40 local radio stations. The BBC website, iPlayer, apps in the App Stores, etc. are all paid for through this as well. If you're outside the UK you will see adverts as it can't subsidise access for non-UK citizens, but inside the UK all this content is 100% free of all advertising other than to cross-promote BBC content.
In recent months the Government have suggested that it's an unfair burden. There are two sides to this truth:
1. Most magistrate courts seem to spend a significant amount of their time dealing with non-payers, and there are people in prison for non-payment. IIRC, it's the most common crime committed by incarcerated women in the UK. For context, it's worth noting that the incarceration rate in the UK is about 1/5th of the USA's so the actual number is still quite low, but still...
2. Most people think scrapping it is a political move, because there are weird power dynamics between Downing Street, the execs in charge of BBC News and the rest of the BBC who seem to have problems with the News division and their friendliness with Downing Street and the PM in particular.
As a result, I think most people would prefer that the license was cheaper, the penalty for non-payment could not include prison and that we keep it.
Also worth noting: from June 2020, this will only be the case if the individual is receiving pension credit.
It used to be everyone paid a TV license if they watched TV.
Then about 20 years ago the government offered a bribe to over 75s and said "we'll pay your tv license". This is basically was basically giving an extra £200 (in 2019 money) a year to every household with an over 75.
This cost something like £750m a year - something like 20% of the BBC budget (a budget that has dropped 25% in the last 10 years)
Then the government said "we don't need to bribe old people any more because brexit", and removed that subsidy. However they then said "The BBC will pay it", and old people lapped it up and blamed the BBC
The BBC then said "ok, we will pay for over 75s who have low income, but we won't pay for a license for millionaires who are living off final salary pensions". This was apparently still outrageous.
In parallel to this, the "left" of the country are rather annoyed by the BBC for their perceived bias towards the government and brexit, and thus they are saying "it's time to turn off the BBC"
There is, and always has been, a fundamental unfairness in the license fee. Someone living on their own on minimum wage pays the same as a family of 5 on £500k a year.
Worth noting that today it's easier than ever not to have a license fee, simply use the internet, subscribe to now TV for whatever junk is on sky. There are very few people consume no BBC services and only watch ITV.
It's the right that are currently advocating for the removal of the license fee and therefore de facto, the end of the BBC
The "left", certainly the "remain" left, are publically saying the BBC should be shut down because of Question Time alone.
Surely it would make more sense just to fund the BBC through general taxation. The cost of the license fee is set by legislation anyway, so it's not as if the license fee model gives the BBC any additional independence.
The funding is equally shouldered across the population, so the content should be created with equal consideration too. In practice doesn't always go that way, but that was the principle.
It is not about teams being represented the same amount, but about individuals.
Those appointed from outside the BBC tend not to have any background in NGO or non-profits. Bit strange for a not for profit public broadcaster.
It's a very hairy arrangement and I don't think most of the public are aware of it.
You mean people really go to prison in the UK because they didn't pay their TV license ? I'm speechless !
However, some people still don't pay and ultimately end up in prison for non-payment of the fine.
Last year, in my country (France) quite a few protestors have lost an eye due to Police violence.
And after that we try to give human right lessons to the rest of the world ... what we're good at is hypocrisy lessons imo.
It is a requirement if you are going to watch broadcast media with your TV.
If you just watch DVD/Blueray or play console games and don't have an aerial or dish you don't have to pay.
Surely that would require you to accidentally connect it to an aerial or satellite dish and then accidentality select the tuning option on your TV.
Given that we no longer have analogue broadcasts and you're unlikely to pick up a fuzzy signal with a HDMI cable you might as well just "accidentally" bittorrent the thing you want to watch in 4K and have done with it.
"Yes your Honour I did just happen to accidentally watch 3 weeks of Tour de France highlights on ITV4 at 7.00pm each night whilst connecting up my DVD player"
...frankly, there are more believable vacuum cleaner "accidents" reported in A&E on a Saturday night. :P
Or even more realistically, read some of the news articles about how most TV license convictions are women with low incomes who got bullied by the enforcers who came to the door into signing a confession that yes they did watch the TV for a week after the license ran out.
For someone not wanting to have a TV licence the options are simple:
1)Abide by the law and only watch TV that is not a live broadcast. Then be prepared to defend yourself if you are harassed by the authorities.
2)Don't abide by the law and take your chances. If someone knocks on your door and asks if you have a TV tell them to get lost.
3)Admit to having a TV, face prosecution and pay the fine.
4)If all above fails, and you don't pay the fine, do your time in prison for contempt of court.
None of this is comparable to losing an eye.
If you don't want to pay the license fee, it's entirely your choice to not use the service for which it is mandatory.
The context here is that the BBC is legally bound to be politically neutral. The problem is that in this modern partisan environment both sides think the BBC is horrendously biased. Tory's think it's full of left wing Londoners (not entirely untrue) and Labour think it's full of upper-middle class private school kids (again not entirely untrue).
With the current political divide no one can agree what politically neutral means and criticising the BBC is an easy politic win, as it's easy to 'other'.
Previously BBC was viewed in a similar way to the NHS, a British institution and one of our greatest exports as a country. Trying to shut it down or limit it was politically dangerous. Nowadays less folk are fussed,either they agree it's biased or they're like me and haven't watched it (bar Christmas trips home) since leaving home.
During brexit referendum it would be very easy to debunk exiter's arguments (£350 million a week for the NHS etc). BBC instead called people racist, supremacist and priviliged. People voted for brexit just to spite BBC.
The government stopped paying for it years ago, and forced the BBC to give out free licenses in order to hurt the BBC.
You could argue that not increasing the licence fee to offset the loss of income was about hurting the BBC I suppose though the government side of that argument would have been about not increasing the burden on the less well off who are forced to pay the fee if they want to watch TV.
Like Norway did last year. Now they have it as part of your income tax. [1] This will save a lot of expenses in informing, collecting, organising, prosecuting etc.
I know that means everyone pays even though you don't own a TV, but that is fine by me. You pay taxes if you don't use every road, hospital, school, opera house as well.
(Note, their license fee was about £300 per year last year.)
Scrapping the BBC license fee and not fund it the same via a budget, but instead, a subscription-only will be awful. It will then join the other commercial channels which is 99% reality TV and gameshows.
Normally I'd say that's a little backwards, but the BBC is definitely a culture and education thing, and that firmly belongs in the "benefits everyone" category, IMO.
Before the the dawn of the internet, sure. Now not so much, I would say it is more of a political tool that sometimes produces some low quality educational content.
> You pay taxes if you don't use every road, hospital, school, opera house as well.
And this is a bad thing. No need to make it even worse.
This would mean the funding of the BBC would be under direct control of the ruling government, which creates a conflict of interest (no positive coverage -> no money next year).
> Like Norway did last year. Now they have it as part of your income tax.
Norway TV isn't funded by government budget, they just streamlined the calculation and payment process into your income tax procedure. The budget is still dedicated to TV licensing and owned by the broadcaster.
That's a big big BIG difference. In one case only the financial process is optimized, in the other case you turn the broadcaster into a "national propaganda station".
As a citizen, keep an eye on this distinction on every proposal that is made, and speak up against every step the government takes to gain more control over the budget.
Additionally, the BBC has lost the argument that the license fee makes it neutral and independent to the betterment of all. More than half of the British population perceive it as being untrustworthy and biased (in favour of London metro media studies grad type viewpoints). This phenomenon is especially strong amongst the kinds of people who voted Tory for the first time and gave Boris his big majority, so their views are seen as very important.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/1...
YouGov figures show British trust in the press to tell the truth has fallen, with less than half believing BBC news journalists are honest and impartial.
The loss of BBC market share to other services is being raised as a justification for attacking the license fee here, but the ground is filled with kindling. Both the Tories and Labour see the BBC as ideologically opposed to them now.
If it is recorded, you are correct, but if you are streaming live TV via any online service (not just iPlayer) you still require a license.
Or you could just pay the license fee - which I am happy to do given the quality of content I get from the BBC.
One may love BBC's programmes, or one may not hate them — that is irrelevant. If you watch any TV at all then legally you must buy a license.
The issue is whether you and I should be compelled by government, under threat of criminal prosecution, to pay for the BBC whether we consume its content or not. (As you know even watching commercial TV requires a BBC license, and it is a source of stress for the legally license free to ensure that one does not accidentally infringe when legally using a TV for other purposes.)
My comment was just practical advice for for all those who legally choose not to purchase a TV license yet remain pursued by the BBC with their threatening letters, cards through the door, inspectors etc.
If what you want is the letters to stop, IME filling out the form will prove more effective than strict non-communication.
[1] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/t...
They have a TV license inspector ? Who actually enters your house to inspect ? What happens if you are found watching Doctor Who without her highness' permission ?
> but the government pays it for you if you're over 75 years of age.
What do you mean by government pays it for you ? You mean the BBC tax is waived off if you are too old. (That way I think the Queen and half of her family does not need license).
> and there are people in prison for non-payment.
Sorry for the first question.
This whole system is incredibly stupid. BBC has like this free revenue stream backed up by coercive power of the government. (Imagine Netflix could send people to jail for sharing their subscription or torrenting their shows).
I sent away to get a refund for my TV licence as I only had it part of the year, I filled in the form as to why I no longer require a TV licence. The TV Licence people agreed and sent me my refund.
Next week I start getting the threatning letters that I have no TV licence... I've been getting these threatning letters ever since at the start of every month. Idiots.
It must waste a huge amount of money.
Lose your license, can't drive. No TV license, no TV for you.
The definition of license is a permit to do something. It's a permit to watch TV, given to you by the government.
This is incorrect. You cannot watch or record broadcast TV of any sort without a TV license. That includes any channels on freeview (funded by ad-breaks) or any live TV from another service e.g. watch live TV through the internet (even on services that aren't the iPlayer).
From the TV licensing website:
> Live TV means any programme you watch or record as it’s being shown on TV or live on any online TV service. It’s not just live events like sport, news and music. It covers all programmes on any channel, including soaps, series, documentaries and even movies.
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one
> It's equivalent to buying a ticket for a film as another example.
No it isn't. You have no choice in the matter. When I paid for the TV license I never watched the BBC's content but I still had to pay for the BBC's content.
e.g. If I were to pay for Sky TV I would still need to pay a TV license. I cannot opt out of paying the BBC. The only way to not pay the BBC is to use only online services or only use your TV for consoles / bluray / dvd.
From https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one
The law says you need to be covered by a TV Licence to:
watch or record programmes as they’re being shown on TV, on any channel
watch or stream programmes live on an online TV service (such as ITV Hub, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, Sky Go, etc.)
download or watch any BBC programmes on iPlayer.
This applies to any device you use, including a TV, desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, tablet, games console, digital box or DVD/VHS recorder.
Specifically, fee-funded television programming. No one is stopping you using a TV for other purposes or alternative streaming options.
The law says you need to be covered by a TV Licence to:
watch or record programmes as they’re being shown on TV, on any channel
watch or stream programmes live on an online TV service (such as ITV Hub, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, Sky Go, etc.)
download or watch any BBC programmes on iPlayer.
Or is it possible that a person might hold views that overlap with those perceived also to be put forward by media organisations?
The BBC's success risks suffocating commercial media. Put too many restrictions on the BBC and the risk is of suffocating the BBC. It seems reasonable to me that the government should attempt to find a balance. And, being a government staffed by humans, they make the wrong call sometimes.
And the GMG is no friend to the BBC and has been know to run hit pieces
Commercial local radio has been freed of most of the licensing stipulations that required distinctive local programming or specific types of programming. That is a shame but it doesn't follow that all commercial media has to be rubbish.
On balance, I think the BBC has been a good thing for the UK. However, it's undeniable that the BBC's presence has made it harder for commercial providers to flourish.
Commercial British media companies have not filled the void and have not delivered revenue from new export markets.
Instead foreign owned firms including Netflix and Amazon have cornered the UK market.
to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain
https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/mission
It's not a commercial broadcaster.
They already pretty much do that for their tv channels and iplayer with the tv licenses.
Regardless of that, I do not see how subscriptions would damage impartiality.
But this wouldn't have been "free":
As the director of technology and new media at the BBC, Highfield had just overseen the launch of the iPlayer – BBC's online catch-up service. Now he wanted to try and build a commercial equivalent that would earn more.
You'd have paid for the service on top of, the now included with license fee, broadcast/iPlayer.
Now sure the BBC may have had some advantage over nascent offerings at the time (2007), but let's face these realistically didn't exist in the UK. What we have now is the market controlled by two US companies (and Sky to an extent) that exploit tax loopholes and don't treat their employee's terribly well (certainly in the case of Amazon).
> Now sure the BBC may have had some advantage over nascent offerings at the time (2007), but let's face these realistically didn't exist in the UK
Yes, which is again kind of the point - there was a space for offerings to come in and compete against each other. The ruling was that Kangaroo would likely stop this competition, including stopping competition between the BBC/ITV/C4. There was still a fight to get YouView past the competition stage (canvas back when I worked on the apps, AS2 & constrained video memory was... interesting).
No internet, instead it used fibre optic cable to create a switched video network, which could be used to watch normal cable tv channels, or connect the user to a dedicated remote laserdisc player.
While such systems never got wide-spread deployments, it's interesting to consider how the media landscape would have changed if we had gone that route.
Source, A promotional/technical video from the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1AiM1S8MGk
I doubt anyone not from these shores (UK) would ever peg the UKoGB as a hot bed of left wing leaning types. Our stereotype abroad is pretty fixed and pretty obvious () and also encouraged by us: tourism is a bloody good earner.
We (people in the UK) now find ourselves as rabid defenders of a left wing dream, despite our political leanings. You know why as well as I do, that we love our NHS. If I want to, I can wander into a hospital ER and will be seen to, without any discussion of money. When someone needs medical assistance, metal discs or bits of paper should not be involved - they are merely pretty things and not useful.
() I should point out here that the "British Scientists" meme in Russia (int al) is one we are aware of, and also laugh at and with. There are loads more: and we still laugh with you, because we love you.
And random internet guy says: “It's seemingly a direct replacement of the Soviet-era ‘Armenian radio reported’ type of joke. [It] gained more notability in 2006 following the British reports of the polonium poisoning of Litvinenko.“
Oh, so it’s Active Measures.
In contrast, once market forces were unleashed in academia, good will built over decades was lost and a lot of great people quit. Very hard to get that good will and sense of vocation back.
Not everything in life has been to be run by markets driven by self interest. Some things do better without them.
In comparison, Polish healthcare expenditure is 6,5%. It's obviously worse than NHS, but it's miraculous that it works that well - with only 3 years expected lifespan below UK and 1 below US.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
Health Spending per person
UK: $4070
Belgium: $4944
France: $4965
Switzerland: $7317
That decreased budget of course dates back decades. Increase NHS budget by 25%, and in 40 years compare France and UK systems.
How on earth could the UK media report on the French healthcare system? It's in French! /s
And what exactly is the chance they’ll actually take care of you if you’re not in an emergency condition?
It's worth mentioning that NRK and Norway has taken inspiration from BBC since the dawn of television, including the licensing system (which has just been replaced by a fixed tax).
It's not really clear why the BBC spends money on duplicating this research instead of contributing its ideas to HEVC, AVC etc like everyone else does. Easy to argue that's a waste of tax money. (I'm also British).
The Conservative government of the time decided that they wanted to open up the cable tv market.
They didn’t want the incumbent BT dominating the market so they banned them from carrying TV services.
No TV, no products requiring fibre to the home.
BT quietly dismantled all of the infrastructure they’d put together to manufacture fibre products. Like Europe’s largest cleanroom for instance.
The market ended up split between two foreign companies, Telewest and NTL, using coax.
The tone of the article was "F^$k me it works"
By the late 90s, it would be cheaper and much lower maintenance to replace the robot laserdisc library and banks of players with a large array of HDDs and a hardware MPEG 1/2 decoder chip per viewer.
Sky Box Office just used spare bandwidth to continuously broadcast the same film on different channels with a time offset. That's why then only had a selection of about 3-5 films at any one time.
That was still a useful service but not the same as real video on demand.
In the light of that it would seem natural for the BBC to be involved in developing a standard, equal access streaming platform for content distribution in the internet era - in exactly the same way as their transmission investments helped to bootstrap independent broadcasting, BBC investment in streaming would have smoothed the road for independent content producers to follow.
The particular tragedy is that, for its time, iPlayer was a phenomenally well engineered product - the BBC had done the work to deliver a scalable, user friendly streaming platform, before anybody else had really done so. Taking that platform that had been built with licensepayer money and using it to create a platform that let commercial players deliver content to UK consumers would have created a very different media market and set an alternative shape for how streaming services might work - and yes, it might have obviated the need for Netflix in the UK, but it would have opened up the UK media market to the likes of HBO, Disney, the NFL, and so on in ways that would have profoundly changed the media landscape.
> Netflix would’ve never stood a chance of getting its current market penetration [in the UK],” says the BBC source. “All the big players would have had the market covered for streaming video-on-demand (SVOD)
That's exactly why they blocked it: to allow for multiple individual competitors to enter the market. So... the regulators did a good job after all: by blocking the huge merging of content from three of the biggest providers in the UK.
Take, for example, Denmark where, in addition to hosting a streaming service, multiple state TV-channels have gone online-only. On top of this, public libraries themselves have their own free streaming services.
I spent some time working for a similar organization. And even in 2020, the same attitudes prevails. I've literally seen radio personalities and producers admit the audience is declining, but ask why we can't just milk the boomer audience until they all die off in 30 years time.
These organisations are filled with people who only understand one way to do things, and are incredibly hostile to change. The people on the ground resist any big strategic shifts from management, and use their union powers to fight back.
I have to disagree. The execution is what really matters, not the idea.
- Could BBC have hired the talent to build and scale a credible competitor?
- Could BBC have popularized the model of on-demand, subscription based TV?
- Could BBC have acquired and created content people want to watch?
If the answer to these questions is yes (and the regulations in question aren't a problem), I would highly encourage BBC to launch a video streaming service today!
> Could BBC have hired the talent to build and scale a credible competitor?
Yes, iPlayer pre-dates digital Netflix by a significant margin
And BBC content is sold widely worldwide.
I would presume it’s the British exceptionalism that would make a difference here?
This isn't to say that BBC couldn't have pulled it off, just that iPlayer isn't evidence that they would have.
(It's not available outside the UK.)
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/8c6c2414-df7a-4...
Edit: you may be interested in the detail here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/iplayer/iplayer-perfo... - it should be clear the iPlayer is not just "a website"
This all happened years before Netflix even launched in the UK and was in development in parallel with the US version of on-demand streaming.
But given how much of a lead the BBC streaming service had, it probably would have hampered Netflix's efforts to launch in the UK.
Channel 4 was first by a considerable margin. I remember using 4OD back in 2006/07, it was great.
Iirc, IPlayer existed but it was very limited in what it showed. It took them years to move off a 7-day window (as the article explains, there was massive hostility to streaming within the BBC). 4OD had rights issues but, iirc, they made full series available from day one.
ITV was shit though (and still is)...although that is partly a function of the weird corporate structure.
Also, Project Kangaroo was far more complicated than the article says. By the time that the parties had stopped arguing and BBC had got over their hostility to streaming, Netflix was already going and paying the BBC for stuff that was going to be in Kangaroo. The reason this is coming out now is the BBC lobbyists are going on the attack but this would have changed nothing.
In fact, all it would have meant is that you pay for more streaming services, and one of them would be very shit largely consisting of old episodes of Dad's Army...you can already get the best parts of the back catalogue on Netflix (the BBC should be offering this to licence-payers for free...but this wasn't what Kangaroo was either, it was a money spinner so the Islington boys could fleece licence-payers a second time...Netflix helps them, it isn't competition).
Channel 4 launched about six weeks before iPlayer in the end, but only because the BBC launch was held up by the regulator. It was ready (ish) about six months earlier.
4OD had the seven day window at launch, it didn't launch any box sets until about 2009, and it had lots of rights issues too. Indeed, they forgot to rights clear any of the advertising and had to blank all the commercial breaks with dead air on the online simulcast for the first week...
I do agree that Kangaroo was a bit more complex than portrayed here, but your statement that the BBC are "fleecing" the public by trying to commercially fund the release of older material that is virtually never fully BBC owned and requires the payment of hefty royalties is false.
And your timeline isn't correct, as said I remember using it in 2007 which was before IPlayer launched (you can actually verify this for yourself if you Google, IPlayer launched Christmas Day 07...4OD launched over a year earlier).
And 4OD opened back catalogue on launch. That is just factually incorrect too (again, if you deigned to do some Googling you could find this out for yourself).
I also didn't say that was the fleece. Kangaroo was the fleece. But the fleece is also selling stuff to Netflix that people have already paid for...saying this is "false" is odd (do you work on the BBC's "fact-checking" service by any chance? They have a habit of not understanding the difference between true and false).
Royalties make no difference, that is just economically incontinent...if I develop an oil field and I pay $10/barrel in royalties, it doesn't matter because I am making $50/barrel, and that is tied to my revenue. It makes zero difference. If royalties are prohibitive, don't develop it.
...amazing that you managed to compose a post that was almost entirely fiction but stated with utter authority. Why do you think you did this?
Turning state funded media into a partisan propaganda agency typically doesn't end well in a democracy.
Some would say that’s the inevitable result of state funded media.
First off, a journalist/news channel doesn't/shouldn't only hear from voices that affirm biases, especially state funded ones - in this case, it's healthy for the BBC to hear opposing views taken by their editorial staff.
Secondly, de-platforming shouldn't be there normal. Your phrasing is indicative of a trend towards decimation of speech in western civilization. Your labels of "extreme right" are unsubstantiated and expectations of default deplatforming of anything right of "far left", dangerous to discourse.
For the unfamiliar, here [1] is a recent example of the alleged "platforming" done by BBC QT as alleged by the op. These days, it's gotten all too common to label opposing opinions with extremely inaccurate strawman-able distasteful labels, just to censor them.
an example of that is here: https://www.thecanary.co/topics/andrew-neil/ and https://twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1201200387509886977?l...
Because every time I see one of these headlines on a site full of VC entrepreneurs I take it as an attack on government regulation.
Government should regulate business, there's nothing bad about that. G20 is about to discuss massive government regulation of business to get back lost tax revenue.
It's just important to find a balance.
If this ever was true (and I guess it was at the beginning if you counted YC as a VC back then), it's certainly not anymore.
YC-funded company founders are a tiny minority of participants here these days, and founders of other VC-backed companies barely register as a presence at all.
Kangaroo was never a standalone streaming service. All the parties had streaming services already. BBC were the only ones who planned to offer current content on the platform, and even then it was a link to their own streaming service. The main purpose of this was to sell the back catalogue.
So, no wonder this didn't occur. This project was talked about for years, it never really got started. And the BBC then realised that they could just sell you the programs you paid to develop through Netflix. Revenue in content sales is going through the roof, all that is going into the pockets of staff...why bother creating something new? It is a total scam.
The stuff about the Competition Commission is quite correct though. They made a series of bogus decisions around this time (Pure Gym/Gym Group being another one) where they chose some odd definition of market size. As with most other British institutions, including the BBC, it is run by the academic/lobbyist/civil servant...lots of board seats, no experience of business beyond lobbying for subsidies, quite remarkable.
It's cool that some people at the BBC tried to make a video streaming app. Many companies tried, several successfully, yet Netflix beat all of them for a whole variety of reasons. I seriously doubt BBC had the engineering talent to defeat Netflix, even if there weren't millions of regulations preventing a government-owned media company from innovating.
They where early with a massive ADSL rollout so they had the bandwidth when much of the country was still on dial-up.
We had it as part of the beta period when I lived at home and it was really good for the time.
Actually, the misunderstanding is yours. Technical issues are a small part of the challenge. The 'iPlayer' is not the product, for the most part, the content is.
Finally, there's a good reason the BBC's charter is limiting in scope, like any other business, how would you like it if you were suddenly found out of a job because someone with incredible power in the government was able to waive their hands, raise taxes/fees thereby 'forcing customers to exist' for their competing product, which is probably inferior by virtue of the fact they don't actually have to provide much value at all and can continue on with their guaranteed revenue stream?
For example, Disney has pulled their content from Netflix.
Exactly. In 2007, The BBC believed that the UK == The World with iPlayer. So no innovation from them happened until a new challenger approached.
I was on holiday in another country and attempted to watch iPlayer shows and access was blocked (and is still blocked) even with a VPN and I used to pay for their TV license at the time. I'm not surprised why many kids these days choose online instead of TV to watch when they want, where-ever they want rather than wait. Also BBC iPlayer programmes still have a habit of 'vanishing' if you wait too long.
The technology was available only in the UK and the BBC was ahead of its time with iPlayer but Netflix said "Thanks for your idea and we're very inspired by the BBC..." and repeated this and made it accessible to the whole world which the BBC is still left wondering why they didn't succeed after getting disturbed by Netflix in 2010.
Classic tale of the tortoise and the hare.
The complaints you make are largely directives from the regulator. The BBC has only recently managed to get the regulations relaxed so it is permitted to keep programming on iPlayer longer than a couple of weeks. The lack of access outside the UK largely stems from its requirement to licence content from independent producers and enable them to re-sell the content to other international broadcasters. You couldn't watch iPlayer overseas because in many cases the BBC (due to regulators' directives) did not hold the rights to show its programming to you outside the UK.
Which for online gaming and the cutting edge broadband of 1MB down, just didn't sit well with me. So I gave up on it.
Also of note, they did trial 3G before it rolled out publicly with Three and one of the first tests was to stream a film, which they did (The Matrix) as a test, this was 2002 . I know this as spoke with few of the chaps working on it at the time over lunch one day as I was working for the World Service upon a digital playout system that would see the death of tape and full digital end-end system for the entire BBC radio output. Fun times.
Though around that time the current government (Labour) was busy outsourcing much of the BBC and we saw many whole area's tupped out, which was sad as I'd previously worked at the DOH and saw the whole splitting up and effective prioritisation of whole rafts of the DOH/NHS under the guise of outsourcing and other less well thought out short term quick fix, long -term debt bombing nightmares.
See that's kinda the thing - politics and such things often clash and in the UK it's been a see-saw of one party then the other which has seen many short-sighted moves for short term on paper gains of back patting, and the fallout pushed onto the other party once they take power. Hence many things over the past few decades been stymied and handicapped in the UK in government departments. Seen some serious talent wasted, messed about and general mistreated - just to make a set of accounts look good in the short term.
The platform they run currently is already capable of a lot, and given their knowledge about media production and delivery they, of all the companies out there would have the engineering talent.
They really seemed to have a well-funded, well-hired and well-meaning engineering department.
When I worked for the BBC (2002) I was on £42k a year, official title was DBA, though did more non DBA work and was at a level in which I could tell the top people my views and what needed to be done and they listened.
Thing is in tech, it's not what you're paid per year, it's how many hours you work for that pay a year. Could have a £50k job and work 9-5 or a £50k job and end up cutting 80 hours weeks all the time. Details like that are never reflected in the salary.
Since leaving, a lot of the work I have done has been boring and predetermined.
I might add - the pay has got much worse since you were there. The collective pay increase was 1% most years, which also applied to the banding so would have affected new hires as well. Since 2011, the pension has been no better than in any other organisation.
As for the license - personally that needed overhauling years ago, should just pop a % tax on all these streaming and subscription services and cover the bbc from that. Alas it has so many niche area's and legacy that to transition to a private entity would change it into something people would not like or appreciate and kill it - that seems in part to be known by government at least. Also, BBC monitoring and things like that have a role for the country/government.
I pay money to you to develop a TV program, you sell that TV program to Netflix and make money, and then you tax me purchasing the product. So instead of being content with fleecing me once, you want to fleece me three times...er, no. And the idea of funding yourself by taxing your competition is utterly repellent.
I am not unfamiliar with the BBC, most of my knowledge about Kangaroo came from someone I knew who was on the Trust, but it is just a totally broken institution. I have never managed to work out if the hiring policy just finds bad people or something happens to people they hire after they start working there but it is just horribly broken.
No, that's not what I suggested, as I was advocating replacing the TV license, not running it in parallel as you portray, so no, just no.
>I am not unfamiliar with the BBC, most of my knowledge about Kangaroo came from someone I knew who was on the Trust, but it is just a totally broken institution. I have never managed to work out if the hiring policy just finds bad people or something happens to people they hire after they start working there but it is just horribly broken.
You seem to confuse your experience with `management` and project that upon all staff and without qualifying what you class as `bad` and yet happily postulate that as record, most odd.
The BBC Trust isn't (wasn't) "management".
I class as bad almost everything you have said. It is self-evident. Fundamentally, I disagree with people being ripped off.
The related bmxlib[4], a suite of utilities for dealing with MXF files, also doesn't make the list.
[1] http://ingex.sourceforge.net/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingex
You work to benefit the public in some way, you can usually talk freely about your job (and therefore people are more interested to listen), and there's probably less stress.
(I have a job like this.)
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/information-...