BBC To Launch Music Download Store

Jackson writes "According to a post on Cnet today, the BBC is working on a paid-for download, and ad-supported streaming music store, making available its entire archive of music recorded at BBC studios for TV and radio. The venture has major label backing and is rumoured to be launching next year. More interesting still is that the service will be run by BBC Worldwide — the commercial arm of the BBC — meaning downloads are likely to be available to the entire world, not just the UK. Beatles radio sessions, anyone?"

Comments

Publicly funded?

[religious freak]

The thing I don't understand is this...

If the BBC is publicly funded by the British people, why the hell are they charging for their content? Isn't that a bit absurd?

Same thing goes for PBS here in the States, though I've got slightly (very slightly) more ambivalence towards them because they receive such a minuscule amount from the government and they are always stretched on budget. But still, PBS shouldn't be charging for content...

Re:Publicly funded?

[Vectronic]

Hmm, but would you want your taxes/gifts/donations etc going towards royalties to some music company? I would presume that the BBC doesnt have complete control over some, or most of the music they would be distributing.

And on the other side, if they can make more money from this, it means they can A: put their normal funding to better use, or B: not use as much.

However, having it ad-funded, will inevitably make the advertisers have more control over its existance.

And as for PBS, I think they should be allowed to charge for content in certain cases, like VHS/DVD/CD copies of shows as they have already put their income into making the show, not duplication and distribution of discs.

Re:Publicly funded?

[Chaos Incarnate]

You say that you're in the US, so you're not funding them; they certainly have the right to charge you.

As for charging the British... well, this certainly doesn't sound like something that comes under the remit of the TV license fee, so charging users is the only other way to get funding for it.

Re:Publicly funded?

[thetoadwarrior]

That's why it's being put under BBC Worldwide. They claim British money doesn't go into the Worldwide portion so they can do what they like.

However I don't buy that the worldwide unit doesn't get any benefit from the tv licence. Hell, the fact it was British licence money that funded those records means that we've paid for them to have those recordings and now we're going to get charged again if we want something from there.

Re:Publicly funded?

[azadder]

The content may be free.

They could be charging for the continued storage and bandwidth needed to capacitate the service.

In that way, the service could be self-supporting (as in not requiring more funding from outside sources to run).

Or at least, that's what I hope (seeing as no pricing information was given).

Re:Publicly funded?

[M-RES]

The Licence fee covers all BBC services available to the UK (which doesn't include BBC America as far as I'm aware, and only recently included BBC World Service), and as part of the deal the BBC aren't allowed to sell advertising space on any BBC branded channels.

It's great for films as you can sit down and watch uninterrupted, but as some have pointed out, you have no choice in paying this 'tax' if you own any equipment capable of receiving BBC channels whether you watch them or not, which is totally unfair.

What's even more annoying is that old BBC shows are aired on the UKTV range of 're-run' channels inc Dave (formerly UKTV Gold) UKTV Food, UKTV History, UKTVG2, UKTV Style etc etc etc, but these channels have quite a LOT of advertising. In keeping with the BBC charter the channels have their own distinct branding which is completely separate to the BBC's, but I still find it annoying that these channels are broadcasting programmes the British public have already paid for as an outlet to sell advertising for additional revenue. I don't know the state of the accounts for these channels, but if they return a profit then surely that money should be issued back to the license-fee payer as a rebate on the following year's programme-making.

Re:How about a way for for non UK people to watch

[FictionPimp]

I shouldn't have to go though questionable means to get to content I'm quite willing to pay for.