BBC Views Content Piracy As Wake-Up Call

Peregr1n writes "The BBC is reporting that they view the piracy of a Doctor Who episode before its broadcast date earlier this year as a 'wake-up call about the demand for new technology', in a refreshing change of opinion from most media/broadcasting corporations, who would damn this piracy without hesitation. They are forming plans to simulcast the television channels BBC1 and BBC2 on the web, as well as allowing users (only in the UK to start with, unfortunately) access to shows for a week after the broadcast date. It is worth noting that they are already trying out a system where they make shows available on the web before television broadcast, with The Mighty Boosh. Other BBC3 comedies are due to follow suit and become available on the internet first." Relatedly, shadowlight1 writes "K9, Doctor Who's lovable robotic dog, is returning to the new series with a cameo in season 2."

Comments

duh

[JeffSh]

BBC, as a publicly funded institution, much like PBS, obviously views broadcast completely different than a for-profit station.

besides being obvious, this is very nice, and a credit to the BBC for showing that sometimes publicly run things do get it right.

**this is not an endorsement for state sponsored programs or wholesale socialism, because most of the time it sucks... but BBC seems to be doing it right, for a change.

Re:duh

[jfengel]

They could, especially if they weren't networks. The networks have a particular reason (economically speaking) to keep the shows private: access to the limited resource of public airwaves and/or cable TV space/satellite space.

These are extremely convenient ways to watch TV, so people prefer them to Internet broadcasts. Also, because of the high barrier-to-entry, there's a perception (true or not) that it's "better" content: it's "what's on TV". There's a considerable amount of simple inertia, too.

So advertisers will pay more for a 30-second commericial on TV than for an overtitle on your web broadcast. (You may well find overlays even more aggravating than commercials.) Or you could put in real commercials and watch the slashdotters scream about the DRM you put on to keep people from skipping them.

You'll find that the expense of producing a TV show, plus the expense of serving up 640x480 video images, rapidly exceeds the budget you get from advertising.

That said, feel free to prove me wrong. Overcome the inertia, make something good enough that people WANT to download it. Or build a set-top box for serving up Internet-based content, and hook it up to a simple remote.

(The remote alone is a big barrier. A TV remote has the simplicity of ten digits because of the limited number of channels. Full URLs are going to be a pain in the ass. Tie it in to full-scale web surfing, perhaps, with a wireless keyboard, preferably for a high-def TV so that you can read the screen...)

I'd love to see the Internet break the barriers that scarce spectrum/cable/satellite bandwiths bring up. It's starting to happen with music, which has lower start-up costs both in production and bandwidth. Video content may be next.

Hope they will do this internationally

[earthlingpink]

The Beeb has been talking about doing this for a while (and trials have apparently started). It will be interesting to see if they can allow non-UK residents access to such a service.

It's not a technological issue preventing this; it's actually the BBC's Royal Charter, which states that any overseas venture has to be paid for with money that is not derived from the license fee (also, there could be potential international copyright issues; however, the fact that the World Service broadcasts music, amongst other things, to the four corners of the world suggests that the BBC is in a position where it can come to reasonable agreements with copyright holders).

So on that basis, a serious question: how many people outside of the UK would be willing to pay for access to BBC programming over the web?

Beeb is *big* online

[NigelJohnstone]

Take a look, their online part is he 11th most popular English language site:

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=lan g&lang=en

They're ahead of CNN, ahead of NBC, Fox all the USA networks, all print media. They're even ahead of Fastclick (the web advertising network!).

You gotta be impressed at how they've grasped the Internet.

Re:Piracy or leak?

[Akai]

I'm not convinced it was a stunt, I'm sure the "buzz" it generated was more welcome than shunned, but there a few things that indicate the "CBC employee leaked it" story are at least partially true.

The main one being that the leaked episode one was an NTSC rip (29.97 fps) and not a PAL (25 fps) that indicates that it did indeed come from an NTSC territory and not a PAL one.

refreshing

[tero]

If only other media companies would pick this up!

Next thing we need is a global service - I understand BBC limiting itself to UK to begin with, it is financed with UK tax money after all, however I really would like to see the day when broadcasters realize the power of global audience.. most companies are already global, and I would think the likes of Coca Cola, Nokia, Sony and Microsoft would see the possibilies of global marketing and the money they'd save/make by running their advers with something like that.

The superduper DRM schemes and limiting products to special markets only (through DVD regions for example) seems like a very odd and counter-productive thing to do from a global point of view.

Maybe what I'm asking for is utopia and maybe the current money flow is enough to keep us inprisoned to strange regional marketing schemes for years to come.. but maybe some day we consumers get the point through.. here's to hoping!

That is nice, but . . .

[ndansmith]

. . . I'd rather be able to download the media via bittorrent (even with commercials) rather than watch it streaming from a BBC server. Perhaps once the BBC realizes the expense (in terms of bandwidth) of streaming all their programs to a wide audience they will offer downloads via bittorrent.

little britan

[crabpeople]

If not for bittorrent, i would never know the joys of little britain (basically kids in the hall but british). this show has perminantly enhanced my life i believe. Hopefully the BBC will be smart and allow users outside UK to download from BT (i loath streaming). Note to any bbc'ers reading this. I will pay for it per month. I find the quality of BBC programming, to be astounding.

Recent finds

The Power of nightmares

Global Dimming

The Private life of plants

If drugs were legal

also things like little britian and dr who. I would say that i download more BBC content than content from any other company/org. If this were provided for say 20 dollars a month, for fast not dead at 98.2% torrents, i would happily stop using the free ones.

BBC advances humanity once again.

The power of honesty

[Cloud K]

This is why the Beeb quite simply 'rock' and why the license fee is worth every penny.

Imagine if the RIAA or MPAA were in their shoes. "RAWWWWRRR!! SUE!!!! DIE!!!111!1one" - but the Beeb are different. They actually listen and take a pro-active approach. Instead of shouting at people for... ahem... "pirating" their show they ask themselves why and what they can do to *persuade* people not to or to do something even better that prevents people from needing to in the first place.

Heck, they even have a show (Points of View) where they allow people to blantantly and openly slag them off and read out the letters on air. Okay if someone's being a numpty then they'll just turn around and say "don't be silly." But often someone comes up with a valid point, and the appointed representative holds his hands up and says "yes you're right. Here's our apology and here's what we're going to do to prevent it happening in future"

You don't get that from many companies. One that actually listens to its customers is so worth it...

Of course they also get bonus points for inventing the BBC Micro... and BBC News Online which everyone around the world like to read... and embracing open source... and...

The BBC will follow the money.

[emil]

The BBC has a lot of content that I like; the few odd series that have made it to US public television that I specifically remember were Doctor Who, Are You Being Served, May to December (was that the name of it?), Mulberry, etc.

There were quite a few others that generated buzz but I never managed to see (Kumars of x Street, Yes Minister, some of the old crufty stuff like Upstairs Downstairs).

Heck, even MTV picked up The Young Ones.

The BBC has a large catalog of shows. Imagine charging an internet license for Bittorrent access to this archive and suddenly doubling their audience.

It was recently very difficult to get the entire Doctor Who 2005 down by bittorrent. If the BBC guarantees a few seeds for everything, then heck I'd pay.

It will be somewhat ironic if the BBC becomes a global media powerhouse while ABC, CBS and NBC go the way of the dinosaur.

Positive step, but not unexpected

[Thumper_SVX]

The BBC has long held with the idea that the content they produced should be as available as possible, at least to the British people. This is interesting in that it marks a step away from the idea of being UK-only focused (at least potentially).

Now, as an ex pat myself I still find myself drawn to BBC programming; partly becuase I still find the English accents more "comfortable" than American for certain types of TV, but mostly because I find the general quality of writing and acting tends to be better. US TV is awfully focused on "How can we sell something to the public using the ruse of a drama", while the BBC has always subscribed to the notion "Let's entertain our people with good drama." This leads to a lot of good quality American TV shows that eventually pander too much to advertisers and/or "consumer advocate groups" and as such tend to eventually target at the lowest common denominator of the audience. This is why subsequent seasons of many TV shows seem to become progressively worse than the last.

This isn't really just an American phenomenon; I see this in some British TV shows as well, but in general it seems more prevalent in the US. Perhaps that because there are more hours of TV produced, more channels or something... I haven't really performed any sort of analysis; just my observations.

Getting back on topic though I have to say that I enjoy BBC content and would gladly pay an annual fee (like the license fee) for unlimited and unfettered access to this content. To me it would be better value than most of the crap I get on my satellite TV and never watch... and BBC America doesn't really count because many of the shows pre-date my moving to this country (10 years ago), and those that are more recent are often repeated incessantly and thus lose some of their "luster". A subscription to content would allow me to grab content on my broadband connection as I want to see it, then dump it to the hard drive of my MythTV box for viewing on the family television. Better than crowding around a monitor and just as comfortable as sitting watching regular TV.

I can't be the only person out there to be able to count the number of programs they actually watch on American TV on the fingers of one hand... not to mention being able to put my finger on what I consider quality TV because it is so different from all the other chaff on TV.

For the love of God, sell them to me!!!!

[SuperKendall]

I want to watch the New Dr. Who. I even want to give the BBC money as I think it's a fine thing they are doing.

While simulcasting on the web is a nice step, just let me download the episode and give you money! Otherwise I'll complete the one step I can - downloading the episode - and then PERHAPS buying the DVD later after I've already watched all the episodes. Simulcast is just not anywhere near as convieninent as downloading, even if I am able to view it which I doubt very much not being a UK citizen.

With Battlestar Galactica I had the same issue. I wanted to watch the show in HD but that was impossible on TV in the US (at le4ast with my cable) - so I was forced to seek avenues other than TV to watch it. When they released the DVD I bought it, which as far as I'm concerned closes the loop. But I would have also happily paid to download those episodes as well, and probably still bought the DVD anyway for the extras and convienience of storage.

The one thing every content provider needs to do right now is open up a channel for payment, at the very least saying "I downloaded this and my payment precludes you from suing me. Enjoy the extra money you would not have seen otherwise".

All I can say is: WE allready have this

[SargeantLobes]

Finally?

We (the dutch) are allready doing this. The website (http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/ translate as "Missed Broadcast/Episode" hosts most of the stuff broadcast by public access (three channles here), it's all avaialable for free, and without commercials (which our public access does have, but only in between shos, not during).

I myself am enjoying this service so much, that I'm thinking of not getting a TV at all (I'm moving out soon, finally), since I'll be able to get my news, and background (60 minutes like shows) from the forementioned website. I'll just get the big american shows from the web, I usually end up doing that now anyway, since our (fully) commercial channels are atleast six months behind on the americans.

Re:This is what I'm paying a licence fee for.

[saskboy]

And they should look at this as an ideal way to export the British way of life through entertainment channels. For years the Hollywood movie has defined foreign entertainment in many parts of the world, but now the Internet might bring another country's productions to the forefront of the world stage, and America will begin to lose its grip on the "on-screen" entertainment monoploy.