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Why the BBC's iPlayer is a Multi-Million Pound Disaster

Posted by Zonk on from the interweb-kersplosion dept.

AnotherDaveB writes "As part of 'Beeb Week', The Register discusses the 'multi-million pound failure' that is the iPlayer. 'When the iPlayer was commissioned in 2003, it was just one baffling part of an ambitious £130m effort to digitise the Corporation's broadcasting and archive infrastructure. It's an often lamented fact that the BBC wiped hundreds of 1960s episodes of its era-defining music show Top of the Pops, including early Beatles performances, and many other popular programmes ... The iPlayer was envisaged as the flagship internet 'delivery platform'. It would dole out this national treasure to us in a controlled manner, it was promised, and fire a revolution in how Big TV works online. For better or worse it's finally set to be delivered with accompanying marketing blitz this Christmas - more than four years after it was first announced.'"

7 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. BBC iPlayer Links... by Virgil+Tibbs · · Score: 4, Informative

    About BBC iPlayer and Ashely Highfield:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/ashley_highfield/
    http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071118205358171
    http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/10/iplayer_drm_and_1.html
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2007/11/linux_figures_1.html
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2007/11/groklaw_interview.html
    http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/08/defective_by_de.html
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Highfield

    This may help you to understand the issues.

    --
    www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
  2. Irellevent negative spin by Marcus+Green · · Score: 5, Informative

    "It's an often lamented fact that the BBC wiped hundreds of 1960s episodes of its era-defining music show Top of the Pops, including early Beatles performances, and many other popular programmes."

    At a time when video tape was very expensive and it made sense to re-use the tape rather than loading a huge amount onto the cost of each apparently ephemeral program. This "lamented fact" seems to be utterly irrelevent to the main "story" that the Register is reporting, but it does add a nice up front negative spin to everything.

    1. Re:Irellevent negative spin by Andrew+Kismet · · Score: 4, Informative

      Who could've said back then just how 'culturally significant' they would be? It was just another episode at the time, nothing era-defining. Another episode that was sitting on a big, expensive, broadcast-quality tape that they needed for other shows.

    2. Re:Irellevent negative spin by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 4, Informative

      At a time when video tape was very expensive and it made sense to re-use the tape rather than loading a huge amount onto the cost of each apparently ephemeral program. This "lamented fact" seems to be utterly irrelevent to the main "story" that the Register is reporting, but it does add a nice up front negative spin to everything.

      There is some truth to this. Even in the USA, similar practices were followed. NBC saw no value in keeping copies of "The Tonight Show". I don't know the numbers, but a large amount of Johnny Carson's early years as host are gone forever because NBC reused the tapes.

      However, it's worth noting that this was not an isolated practice and the BBC is well worth criticizing for its poor judgment at the time. They also routinely wiped audio tapes of BBC radio performances that were recorded uniquely for the BBC. In the 1960s the BBC had limits on how many records it could play on the air, so to get more music on the air, popular artists such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on would appear on BBC programs like Top Gear and record special versions of their songs for radio broadcast. This also provided an opportunity for the artists to record cover versions of songs they liked, many of which were never recorded for release by these bands. The Beatles easily recorded over 30 songs for BBC radio that they never recorded anywhere else. Audio tape was fairly cheap at the time, certainly a lot cheaper than video tape, yet the BBC still wiped it. It wasn't until around 1966 that they finally saw some value in keeping tapes of these special recordings. It was only through the work of fans who taped shows on primitive recorders and collectors of BBC radio transcription discs that many performances were preserved (albeit in poor sound quality) that would otherwise have been lost forever. Even into the 1970s, the BBC was routinely still wiping video tapes and several Dr. Who episodes exist only because some fan with access to primitive video recording equipment was able to make a copy of the show at the time it was broadcast. Let's not cut the BBC too much slack as they have shown consistently poor judgment over the years about what to keep and what to get rid of.

  3. Value for money? by chrb · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article lambasts the BBC for spending £4.5m on the iPlayer. While it seems a lot, it should be viewed in the context of other media distribution systems: it will be accessible to 10 million homes with broadband in the UK. Given the popularity of BBC content, I'd expect at least 50% to use it at least weekly. Which would work out to an initial cost per home of £1, or about 35p per user, which seems more reasonable. Remember that YouTube sold for $1.65 billion, and it owns no content.

  4. there is no such thing as "open DRM" ... by erlehmann · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... and there won't ever be.

    consider this: in traditional crypto Andy wants to send Bobby a message. Evey wants to decipher it, therefore she needs some kind of key. now in DRM, Bobby and Evey are the same person. BUSTED.

    yeah, it's copypasta, i know. but it had to be said.

  5. Re:That's heavy... by Zunt · · Score: 3, Informative

    Err... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/02/highfield_bbc_linux_website_users_bafflement/...?