He should have done, he worked for STAR TV, which broadcast it in some Asia Pacific markets until 2002, when the BBC was still having doubts about launching BBC Prime there.

The Granada UKTV channel is now called ‘Granada TV’
http://www.starselect.com/channels/uktv.html

It is fairly ridiculous for the BBC to take the position that its profit-making operations aren’t hugely subsidized by the tax-exempt and taxpayer-supported portion of the BBC. If the BBC is the 1,000 pound gorilla in the room, the fake separation of the BBC’s profit-making and non-profit-making arms is the 10,000 pound time bomb that’s ticking away under the floor boards.

In the long term, the Governing Board of the BBC is not doing the UK any favors by hiding from this obvious deception and hypocricy. It is merely leaving it for somebody else to exploit the issue.

And yet, I can’t quite bring myself to insert the word “trampling” into this discussion.

I was in the US during the run-up to the first Iraq War, which is known in the Middle East as The First Oil War (quite correctly in my view).

The cheerleading of the US corporate media for the mindless carnage to follow was shocking. I found myself thinking, “This must have been what it felt like in the early days of the Third Reich.”

And yet it was still possible to get a more or less balanced view from foreign sources. A public television station (public service, community-owned), WEDU, every evening broadcast a a 30-minute TV news program from the BBC and then a 30-minute English language news show from Deutsche Welle (DW-TV).

For me, in those days, the BBC and Deutsche Welle were little video windows into reality.

(Sigh.) I hope the higher-ups in the Beeb give some serious thought to the ways its for-profit/not-for-profit dual personality could be suppressing creativity and diversity in the media.

The BBC gets most of the big issues right. But on this issue, I’m uncomfortable about where this thing may be headed.

REG CROWDER
[Freelance Financial and Investment Writer]

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/.....serID=6304

http://www.journalistdirectory.....EG-CROWDER

First of all, BBC Worldwide. Now I’m not going to defend Worldwide, as a remarkably high percentage of the pronouncements that come out of it are complete toss. They also, in my experience, make virtually everyone within the main BBC give off a small, weary groan as – once again – Worldwide’s remit (to make as much cash as possible) clashes with the BBCs (public service). I wish that Worldwide was either spun off completely or at least renamed.

Second, the Shiny thing. Well, the real headline for this is “researched forgets to credit someone” – and that’s not exactly an unknown thing is the world of television. In fact, in my experience, the BBC is better at this than most – the massive, ridiculously-detailed rights and clearance documents they have for TV tends to mean they don’t forget this kind of stuff. But either way, it’s hardly something you can make a “teh BBC is evul!” argument about, unless you’re a Digg reader.

Finally, the local newspapers. Another way of looking at this is that a set of established local monopolies are seeking to prevent someone competing with them – as you probably know, local news papers (and thus, local news sites) are almost all effectively monopolies. Of course they’re unhappy about their cosy monopolies being disrupted by competition – the thing that companies in that position will always fight to avoid.

But the key question you’re missing out on is this: is it in the interests of the consumer that there is effective competition in the local news web site market? Or is it beneficial that there are private-sector monopolies? I think there can only be one answer to that.

On a national scale, we have probably the best set of news sites in the world – all of which have to compete with the BBC, and do it very well. Of course, you and the Telegraph and the rest would get more traffic if there was no BBC news – but it’s the competitive pressure that the BBC provides has forced all UK news sites to up their game, and that can only be good for the public.

Finally, of course, the bit you missed out completely: the BBC’s plans for local news will have to pass the hideousness of the Market Impact Asessment, like all big BBC projects. If the impact will be to effectively close existing sites, it will not pass the MIA, and the project will not happen. Plus, of course, an MIA will likely take 2-3 years, so existing sites have time to up the ante and produce something that’s more compelling than the BBC plans.

Just to update you. I got this from the Editor of Panorama, Sandy Smith

Hi, I’m the editor of Panorama. Looking back we should have given the girls an onscreen credit as well because their contribution was excellent. This was overlooked in the final stages of a long and complicated investigation. Panorama has a new multiplatform editor, a bigger and better website on the way precisely because we recognise the new talent and opportunities out there. Didn’t get it right this time, sorry to all at Shiny and Catwalk Queen.

iPlayer would play your video. BBC news video would be available to you to show and remix. BBC international might sell ads for other British media. The BBC would, indeed, send traffic to quality British media to support it. The BBC would share its technology as a platform: open-source and/or hosted.

Instead, my British friends look at the BBC as the competitor that feels no sting of competition itself. Well, that’s rather like Google, eh?

So I wonder how products, audiences, and businesses could be built atop a BBC platform.

As I say in the post, all of the things I’m complaining about are unconnected and happening in different parts of a large forest. The Shiny episode is at an operational level, the other two strategic. All they can be symptomatic of – if anything – is something cultural at the BBC; an insensitivity born of pretty obvious causes, and not shared by all there.

I’m delighted to hear there’s more interest in partnerships – here’s hoping it (really) makes those indie production quotas, and then decides to do more. I’m sure it’ll offer welcome relief to a private sector that’s already feeling economic pain, and will feel far more before the year is out.