Perhaps I am precipitous in this post as I am still wading through the hundreds of pages – again, yea gods! – and looking for how the BBC evaluates the use of digital media to improve civic life, educational outcomes, financial management knowledge, cultural understanding, etc. I have read a lot about mission and interests, but not much on how the BBC has moved grade point averages or the confidence of voters on voting on real issues.

This is not a really criticism of the BBC as digital media is plagued by being led for the purposes of either deforming technology (“check out how cool is this…”) or by fulfilling quasi-entertainment interests (“guy, can you meet me for a beer right now”). BUT, if we, and I include the NGO I work for, One Economy (www.one-economy.com), consider ourselves as public purpose media entities then I think there is brighter bottom line measurement of our impact in the world.

In return we get caught up in the organization of the media, rather than its ultimate purpose. The balance of the conversation of licenses, commercialism and market forces is out-of-whack with ultimately do these forces help or hinder the core purposes of the media?

For example, the plurality discussion that Emily brings up always seems to leave the last beat off of the song. The question is plurality (of vendors of channels of voices…) for what purpose? I KNOW there are well-reasoned purposes for plurality, but they are never really dicussed, but rather assumed. However, in this Tilt-A-Wheel digital media world, should we not make too many assumptions, but rather be rather clear about what we are trying to accomplish?

So, Nick, I love the BBC blog and your thinking. And I love the style and content of the BBC, but like our own public broadcasting system in the States, we need to continue to reaffirm both the mission and evidence of public purpose media. Otherwise the BBC will continue to have problems in making a clear value proposition that distinguishes itself from the more commercial competitors.

This is not a question of cash, because I have the free Flowplayer on some of my sites and it plays just fine. As does the BBC iPlayer and with a much larger window than The Guardian uses.

Congratulations to the BBC for ensuring that is the case. Just one example of the difference between an organisation that has a public service remit and a commercial business.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/87/response/349/attach/3/RFI20080283%20-%20final%20response.pdf

People used to say no one will pay for a bearish analyst’s report, but I think with the top-slice-licence-fee-booty at stake, C4 has every incentive to be bearish…

From a corporate governance perspective, C4 is a train wreck.

Have a good weekend!

You don’t have to wait for someone to say “No” to the BBC. The BBC Trust already said “stop!” to BBC Jam.

Yeah, I’m still waiting for the day when Ofcom tells the BBC ‘no’… If I recall correctly, the final decision on PVT rests with the BBC Trust — Ofcom’s role is only advisory in nature anyway.

So we are having a debate about one arm of the state (Ofcom) proposing options for another arm of the state (C4) that would potentially harm another arm of the state (BBC)… ????

If Neelie Kroes weren’t so busy chasing MSFT…

1. I don’t know if the BBC has started measuring links. I will try and find out and if I can tell you I will.

2. I am sure that you (and Emily) are aware that bbc.co.uk just went through a review of its service licence with the results to be published later this year.

This included public consultation and I assume that if people thought it was distorting the market they could have said so. The Trustees are obliged when looking at the bbc.co.uk to look at market impact issues.

Would you like each and every existing BBC service to go through a formal market impact assessment every time its service licence is reviewed?

3. As for BBC Green, this comes out of BBC Worldwide. The BBC Trust is obliged to look at WW proposals for market impact (as they did for WW’s purchase of Lonely Planet – see this link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/framework/commercial_services/lonely_planet.html)

Whether they did this for BBC Green I don’t know as there’s no info I can find on the Trust’s website. Possibly BBC Green was too modest in scope – but again I’ll try and find out. Possibly it was in WW’s five year plan – which was also considered and approved by the Trust.

But its not true to assert that WW can just launch a significant service without the Trust knowing anything about it or considering the impact on the market. see this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/framework/commercial_services/index.html

Nick, you say ‘[I]nside the UK the BBC doesn’t have any impact on advertising revenue’.

How can this be true? The BBC is not a UK advertiser that’s true, but that doesn’t mean it has no impact whatsoever.

Ofcom, for example, has conducted an MIA of the BBC’s HD proposals which shows how the BBC’s entry into new services can affect advertising revenues in the commercial sector.

Russ