2010-03-04
post/426163795
quote 12:48:04
“ The BBC’s own Public Purposes, stated in its own charter [all] bellow for investment in network internet content, which will increasingly, inevitably, ineluctably do a better job of achieving these purposes than TV, whether broadcast or on-demand. […] Rather “the Internet” is again and again stated to be core to the future of the way the BBC reaches its audiences — but only if the output of the BBC is restricted to linear programming and the internet is a new pipe for this linear programming. ”
Paul Bennun at Somethin’ Else posting a Our Response to the BBC Strategic Review.
post/426161147
quote 12:45:43
“ The [report] is a concession to the whiskery rightwing argument that the BBC should meet only those needs that are not provided for elsewhere. If the BBC has no need to address teens because C4 already does that, why does it bother with sport, given that Sky does that; or news, since there’s always ITN? Follow that logic, and the corporation would end up exactly where its commercial rivals want it to be: as a subscriber service for a handful of tiny audiences whose niche tastes are so unprofitable no one else will cater to them. ”
Jonathan Freedland, in a comment piece for the Guardian: The BBC is caving in to a Tory media policy dictated by Rupert Murdoch.
Some would argue that this is a reductio ad absurdum argument, but I think it gets to the heart of why I’m worried about the report: if the BBC is shrinking, where will it stop?
(My main disagreement with his piece is the blithe acceptance that online content can be scaled back, but I’ve covered that elsewhere.)
2010-03-02
post/422844815
quote 23:20:31
“ How can the BBC say, with a straight face, that the internet is “the future for the BBC” while cutting its budget by 25%? Exactly how do you improve the site’s quality and consistency by closing half the sections? If it were that simple, why not cut everything the BBC does by 25%? ”
Adrian Hon: Back to the Future: The BBC is still dead.
post/422841610
quote 23:18:39
“ while consumption of media continues to evolve with the rise of on-demand content across different platforms (as we shall see in upcoming Forrester reports) the BBC’s response seems lacking in conviction. Where the BBC once led fearlessly, it now seems fearful and curiously out of step. ”
Birtspeak 2.0
text 23:17:31
The BBC should also make a step-change towards simplicity in its operations and structure, dismantling the remaining elements of its traditional hierarchy and replacing them with a flatter, more dynamic and flexible structure that reflects the nature of the BBC’s new challenges: wholly focused on serving the public with fewer management layers; better team-working and pan-BBC collaboration; and stronger performance management.
Sigh.
