EU May Become a Single Digital Market of 500 Million People

RockDoctor writes: The Guardian is reporting that the EU is becoming increasingly vociferous in its opposition to "geo-blocking" — the practice of making media services available in some areas but not in others: "European consumers want to watch the pay-TV channel of their choice regardless of where they live or travel in the EU." That adds up to a block of nearly 500 million first-world media consumers. They don't necessarily all speak the same language, but English is probably the most commonly understood single language. And the important thing for American media companies to remember is that they're not American in thought, taste or outlook.

Comments

Blocked

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is blocked by GEMA in your region

Re: Blocked

[geogob]

For those bot getting the "joke", GEMA is pretty much the German equivallent of the RIAA in the US.

They are notorious for geoblocking in Germany videos from youtube which contains content under their licensing rights... Even youtube channels from the artists themselves.

The infamous message "this content is blocked because it contains material owned by GEMA" is a nightmare for youtube users in Germany

And this is where this joke becomes insightful. Once you open the markets in the EU and ban geoblocking, how do you deal with this type of geoblocking? Will they address geoblocking only in a commercial transaction (what would actually be much worse for GEMA in the business model they drive) or address geoblocking in all its forms?

BBC / other state broadcasters?

[mccalli]

Although I'm more or less in favour of this (details around copyright 'compensation' nonsense from the EU to sort out), it does present a problem for state-funded broadcasters such as the BBC.

I'm a UK TV license payer, therefore I fund the BBC. Someone in France, for example, is not funding the Beeb and without geoblocking would be able to pick up for free all of the programming that I and other UK license payers are making possible. Now there seems a reasonably obvious way round it - introduce subscriptions, but this is more problematic than it seems at first glance. Would still need geoblocking + subscriptions for outside the geoblock, because otherwise the current practice in the UK of not caring where and what I'm streaming to will fall apart (you'd need to verify the subscription or similar - how would my kids do that when it's just me on the license, are we talking about having to name everyone covered by the license payment etc.). Worse, if the revenue from subscriptions starts becoming a significant part of the BBC's income, then it will start to produce more content geared towards those subscriptions and become less 'British'.

I'm using the BBC as an example I'm familiar with, but there are other state broadcasters in Europe. The BBC model of license to keep it independent of government editorial control is the only funding model of its kind I can think of, but I would imagine the same issues would apply to most of them.

Re:BBC / other state broadcasters?

[Anonymous Coward]

the EU have already stated that the beeb will be exempt to the rules due to the way it is funded

Re:BBC / other state broadcasters?

[Anonymous Coward]

But geoblocking does not make sense. If you are abroad in, say Germany, you should still be able to log into BBC and watch the programming you have paid for.

Re:BBC / other state broadcasters?

[Runaway1956]

State broadcast means little to nothing. You're paying for it - let other people see it. In return, you get to see all of THEIR stuff. You specifically mention that the BBC is not the only state sponsored broadcast in Europe - you'll get all of their stuff too.

And, I'll point out that despite all the piracy in the world, America's "entertainment" industries continue to post record profits, again and again.

In short - you'll lose nothing. If anything, you stand to gain something. The bigger the audience, the more likely you are to find people WILLING to pay for the content.

The entertainment industries seriously need to change their business models, worldwide. "Entertainement", when done right, makes people WILLING to part with their hard earned money. Sometimes, I see, hear, or watch something that is so good, I actually WANT to give the author a dollar. However, I've never once in my life felt compelled to give some faceless corporation any of my money. Granted, the BBC is somewhat unlike most faceless corporations, but they are still running a scam with their GeoIP blocking.

Not that it's difficult to get around the blocking. There's not a whole lot that I want to see on the BBC entertainment channels, but when something catches my eye, I manage to grab it.

Re:BBC / other state broadcasters?

[xonen]

Valid points - however, most European countries have some form of national TV.

When i am abroad, i'm often annoyed with the dutch public TV digital online channels not being available, due to whatever IP issue causes it. Which i find quite absurd, since it's available for free within my country.

I would welcome a situation where i can watch British, German, French, Italian, Belgian and Dutch television stations online. If all countries open op public stations, i see it as win-win for everyone.

Commercial thinkers should realize i can only watch one TV channel at a time. The BBC will obviously put up the argument that 'everyone speaks English and not everyone speaks French or German, hence their audience is bigger and thus the market is skewed'. And while their may be some truth in that, the British tax-payer will not pay a penny more or less if half Europe watches their shows, since the cost is in creating them, not in distributing.

Likely, IP issues only play with purchased shows (overseas content, sports, etc). Everything produced by public broadcasters themselves - payed by taxpayers - will only profit from a bigger audience in my view.

Re:BBC / other state broadcasters?

[itsme1234]

State broadcast means little to nothing. You're paying for it - let other people see it.

THAT.

From the moment they started all the bullshit with DRM (and I think spending hundreds of millions on this nonsense) I've been thinking "what a nonsesne". You already have people collecting the money, very often by force (yes, people with guns put people in jail for not paying the fee). About 10% of all CRIMINAL prosecutions in the UK are for this bloody fee. It's already all paid. Just make it available!

Re:BBC / other state broadcasters?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think pretty much everyone who pays taxes for a state sponsored broadcaster agrees with this.
The content is already produced. Limiting its distribution doesn't benefit the people who paid for it it any way.
Information is a strange beast in that way. Distributing it costs next to nothing. Limiting the distribution takes away a lot of value from a lot of people.
The argument for copyright is that content wouldn't be produced if it wasn't possible to capitalize on it, but here we have content being produced despite it not being capitalized on.
When produced with taxpayers money it should go directly into public domain.

Re:BBC / other state broadcasters?

[Chrisje]

Well, mate, if you'd then bother to learn someone else's language for a change, you could enjoy the Dutch NPO, the French France Televisions SA, the German ARD, Sveriges Television and many other public broadcasters.

Now I would not mind at all if you watched programmes on the Dutch NPO which I payed for with my NL TV License fees. It's just that you can't. Because you're uni-lingual. The fact that the average German, French, Dutchman and Scandinavian can watch your shows because we hablo Ingles and possibly few other languages doesn't change that fact.

So instead of bickering about me enjoying the odd re-run of Allo Allo and nature shows narrated by Sir Attenborough, I suggest you go back to school.

Now you might say that I respond harshly to your comments, but please remember that the people in the smaller countries and smaller language zones bend over backwards to accommodate the English speaking world. One fringe benefit of me watching your BBC would be that you can actually get a fish and chips in Amsterdam, and we'll happily converse with you about the weather in Wales while we serve it to you from the English menu you just read.

So is it worth your TV license fee to not have to feel like a hapless idiot when you travel the mainland?

Re:BBC / other state broadcasters?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

I'm an American, and I would happily pay for a subscription service to the various BBC channels. As it sits now, the only was people like myself have access to this content is via torrents / pirate streams. The BBC shows are the only content that even registers on my conscious, and "BBC America" just doesn't cut it. I too wouldn't ever want the programming to change from it's Britishness...in fact, that's one of the major reasons I enjoy it is to broaden my cultural knowledge. The amount of income from the potential subscriptions is probably in the millions, and that's just in the USA.

I'm already enjoying much of the content, if I could pay for it I would. The same goes for CBC in Canada, CH4, Space, etc.

Re:BBC / other state broadcasters?

[NicBenjamin]

Ever heard the phrase "Divided by a common language?"

In British English a member of "the government" is not a Bureaucrat with a public service-style salary, it's the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. Where they use "government" we'd use "Administration" (as in: the Obama Administration).

So you basically just said that the Right Honorable David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; actually has control over what the BBC does. He does not. No Prime Minister ever has. And in several recent memorable cases (in particular the run-up to the Iraq War) the Beeb took a stronger line against the Prime Minister (and this in British English, agains the government) stance then our non-governmental independent media did.

Even assuming that you actually meant 'government' in the American sense of a public bureaucracy, it's not really in business. The BBC is pretty much the only broadcaster, and is the only English-language broadcaster, that has 54 African correspondents for 54 African countries. If something interesting happens in Zambia the non-business BBC will immediately have a reasonably intelligent (tho not necessarily pretty) person posting to their website, appearing on their broadcasts, etc. Which is low ratings, and high cost, thus bad business; but tends to produce excellent journalism.

OTOH, Fox and CNN tend to have a stable of a dozen or so photogenic blondes who get air-dropped to trouble-spots, who compare everything to Iraq or Afghanistan because their entire career consists of spending time with our boys in those countries. It's low-cost, and high-ratings; thus good business. Then they juice the ratings more by adding heavy doses of partisanship. The business side gets even better if they can force some extremely dramatic turn of events that will keep people glued to their screens due to the constant potential for mass death.

Currently their business plan to do juice ratings is relatively harmless but incredibly fucking annoying ("Go go Donald Trump!"), but in the run-up to that Iraq War...