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?

[PawNtheSandman]

You wouldn't pay for Mr. Rogers on Demand?

Re:Publicly funded?

[religious freak]

Not if I'm the one paying for those damn sweaters! (Yes, I donate to PBS as well as pay taxes)

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?

[WombatDeath]

Seems you're right about ownership of the archive:

"BBC Worldwide has already struck a deal with EMI to use the Corporationâ(TM)s archive of recordings by the majorâ(TM)s artists and it is understood to be in talks with the other three majors about reaching similar agreements."

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?

[Vectronic]

Well don't rule it out entirely, the deals arent all set yet... I dont see why they couldnt have the normal ad-funded stuff Mon-Sat, and then maybe the (entirely hassle/ads) free stuff on Sunday, or an entire station(s) devoted to the free stuff, I'm sure that whatever archives they have are already fairly well split into one pile or another, the "safe for anything" and the "check the rights" before playing piles, not very hard to go from there.

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?

[seriesrover]

You could also point out why should one pay full retail cost for BBC DVDs etc. At the end of the day, whether these things are covered or not under the TV license, the *real* cost of operating the BBC is what they're trying to cover. In my view the TV license covers basic tv viewing (and radio); everything else has to get paid for somehow. Actually I think the TV license is a pretty outdated model when you consider how things have changed over 20 years with VHS \ DVD \ internet.

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?

[Bogtha]

Hell, the fact it was British licence money that funded those records means that we've paid for them

I suspect BBC Worldwide will pay the BBC for a license to sell this content.

Re:Publicly funded?

[Gordonjcp]

Also, there are some rather distinctly American-oriented commercials (for instance: how many UK car commercials tout miles-per-gallon fuel efficiencies, and displays the sales prices in dollars?)

The big difference here is that there are *no* adverts on the BBC TV or radio channels *at all*...

Yup, no adverts. You know that TV Licence we pay? Well, you know how it's quite a lot less than you pay for cable or satellite in the US? We don't get adverts on our BBC channels. Doesn't it suck to *pay* to watch TV and still get bombarded with ads?

Re:Publicly funded?

[Gordonjcp]

Actually, we still have local broadcast channels that cost nothing - perfectly free. The Portland Metro (Oregon) area has about six or seven of them.

Do they have adverts?

Re:Publicly funded?

[Ilgaz]

Funny that you mention you wouldn't touch such a thing (Realplayer Linux) while it is the cleanest, best performing Real player on the internet which you can actually build right away from source (Helix Community).

OS X version which has been always praised is the closest thing to Realplayer Linux, it is built on Helix Code/Cocoa Frameworks such as Webkit.

The baseless "hate" against Real Player as they are clean for years gives those MS bribed officials ideas of WMP only streaming etc. They think "Oh they hate Real anyway" as someone will of course question the choice of WMP while Real is available to anything you can imagine.

Also let me be the one to say as a OS X user. Flip4Mac can't and will NEVER do WMedia DRM. If BBC chooses WMA/DRM, say bye to your Mac streaming and install Bootcamp or Parallels ;)

They gave up perfectly working real/embedded for Flash/download and act like streaming. Do you know the result? My Mac Mini G4 connected to HDTV can't show BBC embedded video anymore.

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.

Only music?

[sm62704]

I have the HHGTG books, I taped the TV series from PBS, and bought the DVD of the movie, but I have never heard the original radio play. Will it be available at this new BBC store? If it is, I want a copy!

How about a way for for non UK people to watch

[FictionPimp]

I'd be happy to just watch their damn videos. Hell I'd even pay a small subscription fee to do so. Providing it worked properly on mac and linux.

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.

Only one question

[Bryansix]

Will the music you buy be DRM free? I only buy from Amazon now because I'm not up to buy my music five or six times in my life. I just want to buy it once and use it however I damn well please.

GOON SHOW!!!!

[dltaylor]

Absurdist humor fans should really check this out, if they have it.

Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe.

If it plays on my Linux box, I want the set.

Re:Questions:

[TheRaven64]

You know the BBC operates several orchestras, right? And they have, over the years, recorded an enormous volume of classical music. Not everything the BBC records is a theme tune...

Re:DRM'd to death like iPlayer

[Richard_at_work]

Actually the BBC does not own most of its content - its produced by third parties and sold to the BBC.