BBC to Try TV On Demand

Shevek writes "The UK Independent newspaper is reporting on a new BBC trial: 'Later this month, the BBC will launch a pilot project that could lead to all television programmes being made available on the internet. Viewers will be able to scan an online guide and download any show. Programmes would be viewed on a computer screen or could be burned to a DVD and watched on a television set. Alternatively, programmes could be downloaded to a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) ... By launching iMP, the BBC hopes to avoid being left at the mercy of a software giant such as Microsoft, which could try to control the gateway to online television.' Yet more proof that the BBC license fee is an unmitigated Good Thing(TM)."

Comments

License fee

[mr100percent]

Just to remind everyone, the BBC license fee is a tax on every television set in the UK.

(I don't live in the UK, but I would pay it if I could get this kind of innovation)

Re:License fee

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no totally wrong. You pay the license fee for recieving the BBC services (actually, a small slice goes to local TV stations of commercial nature). You pay 110GBP a year for it, and that licenses your whole house for that year. You can have as many sets as you want. However, you can purchase a TV without any tax apart from VAT (sales tax to you americans). The TV licensing people will work out if you are trying to flunk the paying the license fee as most places now require you to fill in your address for the house you will be using it for if you purchase a TV..

Re:License fee

[Tango42]

Actually, no. It's a tax on every household with a TV set in the UK. You can have as many TVs as you like, you still only pay once. I'm not sure of the system for businesses though. (NB: I live the UK)

Re:License fee

[sjgm]

All retailers must obtain your details if you're buying a TV. Most retailers will also take your details for a video recorder as well (as it implies that you have a TV).

Re:License fee

[MoonBuggy]

I would pay it if I could get this kind of innovation

I am in the UK and I am wishing that this can be true but having read the article the cynic in me wouldn't count on getting this yet. Firstly, the trial they have proposed is only to see if the system is feasible, it's not saying that it will definitely go public. It also says that after the initial 500 BBC employees try it out then it will be made available to 'AOL, BT and Tiscali broadband subscribers', this interests me since I am assuming that the service is to be paid from the license fee yet they are going to limit the initial rollout to the three best funded and most expensive per month ISPs in the country. Hmmm.

Re:Trouble is

[Motor]

So maybe there's more to Dirac than just a cool open source project.

All TV programs are already available on the net

[aardwolf204]

But all TV programs are already available on the net,

#tv-torrents

Re:A Question for UKians

[aldoman]

No, you do not pay on how many TV tuners. You pay per household.

No, you don't have to pay for radio anymore. Radio makes up less than 1% of the BBCs total spending, so I guess they figured the cost of billing people for radios was over the amount they'd actually get.

Also, portable TVs are exempt from the license.

BBC starts paid online news subscription

[$exyNerdie]

A couple of days ago, I clicked to view a video on BBC news website and it told me that I have to buy a subscription as international user. I was a bit surprised since so far, BBC had been free and even free from ads.

This page says that: "Broadband video news from the BBC is only available to international users by subscription. Find out how to get the latest broadband video news from the BBC here.

Re:Will the content be Free or Owned?

[RidiculousPie]

The BBC in part funds it's creative content by licensing their content in other countries, and through videos of their old content.

This money is vital for supporting new programmes.

Ideally the BBC would release their material under free licenses, but this would impact the production of new material.

Also not all the programmes shown on the BBC are produced by the BBC (for instance Have I Got News For You is made by Top Hat Productions).

Re:Yeah,

[l-ascorbic]

The BBC channels are available for free via satellite, but they are still encrypted. You need a smartcard to view them, which they will only send to UK licence-paying addresses. They may do similar for this.

Re:Yeah,

[farnz]

They're no longer encrypted; the BBC has moved to Astra 2D, which is very difficult to receive in Europe, so they are now happy to leave them unscrambled (hence no need for a smartcard).

Re:Socialized Entertainment

[Sukh]

Terrestrial channels are: BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel 4 and five.

BBC One & Two are paid for from the licence fee. ITV and five are fully commercial stations. Channel 4 pumps its profits back into production (AFAIK).

We have satellite TV (Sky) which has literally hundreds of channels. We have British equivalents of HBO (Sky Movies) and ESPN (Sky Sports).

Cable provides most satellite channels.

A full list of all satellite channels aimed at the UK audience si available at Lyngsat. In addition, you can also pick up hundreds of European channels.

Why No Advertising ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Policies
Advertising

The BBC is not permitted to carry advertising or sponsorship on its public services. This keeps them independent of commercial interests and ensures they can be run instead to serve the general public interest.

If the BBC sold airtime either wholly or partially, advertisers and other commercial pressures would dictate its programme and schedule priorities. There would also be far less revenue for other broadcasters.

The BBC is financed instead by a TV licence paid by households. This guarantees that a wide range of high quality programmes can be made available unrestricted to everyone.

The licence fee also helps support production skills, training, local or minority programmes and other services which might not otherwise be financed by the economics of pay-TV or advertising.

The BBC runs additional commercial services around the world. These are not financed by the licence fee but are kept quite separate from its public services. Profits are used to help keep the licence fee low so that UK licence fee payers can benefit commercially from their investment in programmes.

BBC

Re:what happens about the licience fee?

[TomV]

I'll believe it when I see it. After all, it took well over twenty years for Spider-Man to make it to the theatres after the original announcements

It's in production. The executive producers are Russell T Davies (author of Queer As Folk, Second Coming and Bob & Rose), Mal Young (BBC Head of Continuing Drama Serials) and Julie Gardner (BBC Wales Head of Drama). Line Producer is Phil Collinson, Head of Casting is Andy Pryor, Script Editors are Elwen Rowlands and Helen Raynor. The thriteen, 45-minute episodes are currently being written by Davies, Paul Cornell, Steve Moffat (Coupling author), Mark Gatiss (League Of Gentlemen) and Rob Shearman.

Filming at BBC Wales is booked to start in July this year. The Doctor has been cast - Christopher Eccleston (Second Coming, Shallow Grave, Elizabeth, 28 Days Later), and story titles have been announced for some of the 1st season (episode 1 - 'Rose', episode 2 'The End Of The World', episodes 9 and 10 'Aliens Of London' (the Steve Moffat episodes) and episodes 12-13 - 'The Parting Of The Ways'.)

While rumours that the budget will be a milion pounds per episode have been dismissed, Mal Young has confirmed that the new series has one of the highest budgets of any BBC Drama ever.

Oh, and Russell Davies has said that it will *definitely* be a continuation of the original series, and is, emphatically, not a reboot.

This is definitely going to happen. It's already happening. The BBC are plugging it as the flagship of their Saturday night schedules next year.

We have this already

[Celvin]

The Norwegian Broadcast Company (NRK, similar license model as BBC) has done something similar for a while now. All the programs they produce inhouse is aired live online, and is also stored in the archive. so you can access it whenever you like.

For the moment this is free for everybody (registration required though), and can be reached abroad (handy for me as an exchange-student in the UK).