Slashdot Mirror
BBC to Put Entire Radio & TV Archive Online
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is to to put it's entire radio and television archive online, free for everyone, as the BBC Creative Archive." The article is a little thin on how far back these archives go, but regardless, this is a gigantic amount of data, and to see it go online, and open to the public is very cool.
All of the programmes currently avaliable are in streaming realmedia, catered to the 56k audiance. I could see this initiative falling flat on it's face unless a burnable, portable and high quality format is used.
This would be a great use for Bittorrent. It would be expensive for BBC to distrubite these; with Bittorrent, it would keep the costs down, and present a non-piracy method to the public.
Finally, I can see the last 5 episodes of "Alo, Alo"!
That all the Monty Python episodes will be available? That would be really cool, but I just spent ~$100 on the 14 DVD boxed set. Nuts!
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
Hopefully they will do what they do with the BBC Broadband service - peer with DSL and cable ISPs so the bandwidth costs nothing apart from the upkeep of the system.
This also means that international folks can't access it. Which is good since I pay my TV License...
IntechHosting - Free domain, 2GB, PHP, £4.95/$8.95
P.S.: Those things that sound like commercials in the NPR broadcast can't be commercials, because public radio doesn't have commercials by definition. They must be "sponsorship acknowledgements."
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
This news absolutely makes my day. Week! If they manage to do this just a little, this just made my year.
Quotes like this:
"I believe that we are about to move into a second phase of the digital revolution, a phase which will be more about public than private value; about free, not pay services; about inclusivity, not exclusion.
Doesn't that single quote look more exciting than a whole porn site? :-)
The whole BBC library! All the documentaries and stuff... all the Monty Pythons, all the Young Ones, all the Bottoms, all the AbFab, all the Men Behaving Badly, all the Blackadders!
All the cricket Test matches they used to broadcast!!
Oh... Excuse me, I think I just wet my pants.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Will this just be news/education/documentaries? Or will it really include every episode of Doctor Who and Eastenders?....
Wouldn't 'free, legal TV entertainment downloads' result in absoloute outrage from the MPAA and friends? I can't see it ever happenning....
Just wanted to point out to the world that TV License paying Brits like myself pay for the BBC. Just something to keep in mind when you're downloading Red Dwarf season 3.
But don't get me wrong, I'd like to add how happy I am with the BBC; they offer fantastic services and I'm proud that they're available to everyone in the world. Without much doubt the quality of radio and TV in the UK is far better because of the BBC. Not to mention Brits won't put up with frequent or long advert breaks because the BBC channels have none!
Also, it's refreshing to see a company be happier to let people enjoy it's IP than to be obsessed with milking the consumer for every penny it can.
What really pissed me off a couple of months ago was that they CHARGED ME MONEY (4 USD) for watching a 5-minute part rerun on the web. I sent them a big fuck you-mail and asked what the hell was going on with the property of the people. The broadcaster is owned by the state, ergo the public. No reply.
So kudos to the BBC, crap to NRK.
[History of the BBC]
The BBC was founded in 1922. They broadcast radio only until 1936 when they started their first TV channel. A lot of cool stuff.
Everybody I know who heard those broadcasts agrees that it was the best HHGTG of all. I don't believe they've ever been released exactly as originally broadcast. Transcripts are available of those shows, but these miss the subtle music and audio effects that made the show really wonderful. I know I was disappointed with some audio tapes I purchased years later.
I've never been interested in ripping off Douglas Adams, or his family, by downloading mp3s that purport to be copies of the original show.
Does this mean if you query the cluster archive with 'why' 'archive' it will tell you 42?
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
This seems like a good idea but I think there will be a lot of problems or limitations.
The BBC appear to have sold the rights to many of their successful programs to other channels such as UK Gold. For more recent programs, they might not own the Internet rights to them if they have been made for the BBC by third party companies (I think this has stopped them from including some radio programs in thier existing (and very good) radio archive site. Also, what about international rights - I would guess there are many cases were the BBC have sold rights for brodcast in other contries to other broadcasters.
While I think this good be very good, I wouldn't be suprised if it is limited to clips that are more useful for research purposes (like news footage and small budget documenteries) than the big money programs.
Interesting question - along with all the other "Will it include my favourie series" questions. At the moment, the BBC sells videos, dvds, audio tapes of its shows. Now I would think this brings in a reasonable amount of revenue. But if all the content is to be given away for free, surely these will die away?
<fnord>OBEY</fnord>
The Rupert Murdoch owned media has become increasingly shrill about the BBC. Recently a top Sky (Fox equivalent in the UK ) executive made a speech about what he wants done to the BBC:
* Forced auction of any good programs the BBC makes to Sky and ITV (Honestly!! Anything good should be reaped from where it was produced, and interrupted with reams of shite car adverts.)
* Enforced licence fee reductions
* Banned from buying US imports (24, Buffy, etc)
* All kinds of other random restrictions to make life easier for the bottom feeders at Newscorp.
The Sun and Times, Murdochs bought rags, have also been consistently ragging on about the bullshit Iraq dossier affair, in which a BBC journalist is accused of actually telling the truth.
This is the ultimate reply.
" Fuck with us, we'll bury your "Footballers Wives" and "Sex in trashy Greek holiday resorts" crap in 70 years of quality broadcasting!"
This is almost too good to be true. Have to see if Tony gets a call from Rupert, and poor old Greg Dyke gets his marching orders.
The amount of historical material is mind boggling! I'll be eager to support once it is available. We should have more broadcast companies trying to give "public value." Heh. I honestly can't imagine a company in the U.S. doing something like this.
However, just to ponder, I remember reading that the BBC was getting a lot of flak for the suicide of David Kelly. I hope it's not too cynical to suggest that perhaps in some way, they are doing this to restore some of their image that may have been tarnished?
At any rate, this is definately a very magnanimous thing for the BBC to do, and I am glad to see it.
If the BBC releases their Radio Archive, they might be distributing great artist live performances like Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. I know that theses performances have been released on CD by major record labels.
Will the RIAA go after the BBC for distributing their own recordings of someone else's material? Will they have to get permission from every artist they want to feature in their archive?
If an artist knows I am recording their performance and chooses to perform anyway, do they own the rights to distribution or do I?
I know they are dumb questions, but the mechanics of the ownership seem really confusing to me in an archive or library format.
- How can it be determined whether the use is commercial or not? I assume they mean you can't re-distribute the content for profit, but what about using the material as research for books or other for-sale works?
- What will the RIAA say? Surely they won't just lie down while Beatles performances, John Peel Sessions, and other huge cash cows are available for free.
- What will the MPAA say? Apologies for not having done my research, but surely there are DVDs for sale at Best Buy of content distributed by members of the MPAA?
- Will it only be material the BBC explicitly produced? Surely they, like other networks, have broadcast shows or footage that they didn't create.
- What formats will be used? This seems like a thorny issue. Many of the most popular formats have strings attached. With the hoo-ha surrounding proprietary image and sound recording formats, what's the best set of technologies to use?
- How long will it take to get the material online? It seems like this will be a never-ending project, with new content being created 24/7.
- What will the order of precedence be? Will it be FIFO, FILO, by popularity, by media type?
This is terribly exciting... I hope other media outlets follow suit."Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
Please let it be divx instead of realmedia or other crap!
Even with Sky satellite TV in the house, my wife and I spend most of our TV hours tuned into BBC1 & 2. Apart from the lack of annoying commercials, the BBC have consistently out-done all the commercial channels in terms of the quality of its programming. Way to go, BBC. We love you!
Others have mentioned Dr Who, Black Adder and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Here are some other BBC classics, just a few favourites that spring to mind:
Period Drama: Elizabeth I; I, Claudius
Drama: Casualty
Comedy: Fawlty Towers; Steptoe and Son; Only Fools and Horses; One Foot in the Grave; Red Dwarf; Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
... And I, not being a British subject, would still be willing to pay a lesser "TV tax" subscription for the access to a near-TV quality, downloadable archive in a portable format.
Let's be fair: the cost of these fine productions (and let's not get into the nit-picks about cardboard sets and cheesy sci-fi aliens) has already been borne by the TV-tax paying British public. They got to see ad-free television produced by people who were willing to take artistic risks because the they weren't subject to the tyranny of the marketing department.
If this is your style, I suspect you'd like to support them in producing more of the like. I like the sci-fi and the some of the comedy the BBC produces. If I could have access to new productions, even if it was a year or so after the first run in England, I'd would be willing to pay for it.
I think this archive of older radio and TV is a fantastic idea, even if it's not in a portable format right now. Fair enough: if you getting it for free, you can't complain how you're getting it. If the BBC would like an extra revenue stream, earmarked to support risk-taking entertainment that might not be universally popular, but still take direct feedback from the public, rather than markerters, I'll find a way to convert a few US dollars to pounds sterling to support it.
So, a question for anyone who wants to take it on: What would be a good business model for the BBC to take, understanding that their mandate is to produce entertainment for the British public, to enable foreigners to have access, provide support and feedback without jeopardizing that mandate?
That would be a broadcaster with a duty to serve the public, rather than exploit them to make revenue for shareholders, only catering to LCD large-revenue audiences, serving programmes as the carrot-to-get-eyes-watching-adverts in an arse-about-face way. Seems pretty clear to me.
"recently torpedoed by the Kelly affair"
If you read the Times or the Sun, operated by Rupert Murdoch who has an axe to grind against the BBC, because he would like to be the dominant force in British Media (God deliver us all from such a hellish fate.)
"...with the review of the Royal Charter, which provides the conditions under which the BBC operates, due soon (I think in 2005,"
2006
" in any case before Tony the liar gets the boot); it looks like pre-emptive defensive action thus..."
The BBC's internet arm is being reviewed currently. They've been making quite a push with their interactive TV services, and are constantly innovating.
I think you're being cynical in suggesting the only reason that the Beeb is planning this is to defend against hostile forces in the government, though it will surely help.
BBC Radio 7 currently available on DAB in the UK, and over the internet to the entire world, for free, makes the BBC radio archives available to everyone, in much the same way as this proposal (though a "listen again" function for the station is not, because of diverse licensing conditions.)
What Greg Dyke announced is simply a bigger and broader development of things like BBC online Radio, Radio 7, and many of it's news-themed programmes which are already available.
I don't know what went on with the teletext thing you mention, maybe licensing/copyright issues, but it's a fact that you can listen to BBC radio for nothing, so it would seem unusual if this were being done to prevent anyone from outside "Little England" from getting BBC produced culture (see... I avoided "content.")
In short they're not really known for their meanness in this regard. :)
Your misting of the fire-logs seems a little unnecessary.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
...and I came across this paragraph
Newsreader Bruce Belfrage was on air when 500lbs of explosives hit Broadcasting House in October 1940. He paused as he heard the bomb go off during his nine o'clock bulletin - but continued as normal, as he was not allowed to react on air because of security reasons. Seven people were killed.
Did this man have balls of steel or what?
Find funky gifts
CBC has archives back to 1938 online HERE. The radio broadcasts from the front line of WW II are really something.
"recently BBC changed even its teletext format to prevent users who receive spill-over broadcast (like myself in Belgium) to fully access teletext information; I have my doubts on their willingness to make something available for free outside of Little England"
Rather a snide remark from some-one who used to get something for free that people in "Little England" have to pay for.
You still get all their web content for free, don't you ?
"In particular, it will be about how public money can be combined with new digital technologies to transform everyone's lives."
Everywhere in hollywood, stars and middlemen, flunkies and directors, aging rockers and CEOs woke up screaming.
"No.. no, not the Internet! Don't put it ON the INTERNET AAAAHHHHHH, OUR CONTROL, OUR MARGINS! NO PEOPLE NEED USSSSSSSSSSSS!!"
You heartless British bastards.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath