The Future of Public Radio is a excellent piece by Doug Kaye of ITConversations about the impending demise of Public Radio as they face the innovator’s dilemma of innovation wiping out their business.
It’s interesting, because he’s (as usual) bang on the (lack of!) money – this is about spectrum and schedule – old technologies both completely replaced by the freedom and low cost of internet/podcasting.
In the US, he criticises the TV (and I suppose the commercial Radio) networks for reacting to these pressures by creating lower cost news, reality shows etc. and in the UK we have the same crap on the commercial networks, but in the UK I think it’s far more interesting, because we have the BBC – and the BBC have different metrics (quality, community reach, educational value) as well as the broader audience ‘numbers’. Plus they’ve been knocking out fantastic radio, tv and web content for years.
And in the states, the best shows I’ve ever seen appear have consistently been on HBO – a subscription service, that can take creative risks and develop the audience and story over time…at least that’s my impression. Would Deadwood have gained funding and creative support on a regular US tv network? And I get to watch HBO shows when I want through Bitorrent – but as I said before, if I could buy access to them I would. What are HBO afraid of – think how much more revenue they could make by just selling their shows on the internet for a couple of dollars…
Anyway, back to the BBC – as the BBC are dealing with the innovator’s dilemma that Kaye talks about – the BBC have embraced podcasting (and down the line, similar timeshifting capabilities for TV) – and their constraints may possibly lift, if the costs of broadcast are removed by downscaling the need for broadcast spectrum.
I.e. the BBC are publicly funded, and their ‘job’ is to deliver fantastic content. Not ears to advertisers. If the BBC can deliver their stuff via the Internet, and the UK licence payers are happy with that – then there’s no need to hang on to the constraining technology of broadcast spectrum. And that must be a huge cost. In the future, that cost will be diverted to web infrastructure and content production.
I attended a fascinating BCC R&D presentation a few weeks ago, where they demoed a device that literally captures a week’s worth of broadcast for anytime viewing. The Beeb is really, really looking hard at the technical. interface and social implications of this always available technology, although I think the week is an enforced figure…politically, their R&D would not float the idea of ‘stored forever’ in the current licensing climate.
And look at the Beeb’s Creative Archive – a growing open repository of their content for non-profit reuse. And the Beeb’s BackStage developer network is bloody interesting too – opening up their content streams for new tools to be built on the back of their content.
So where the internet buzz is always US-centric, I think the real TV and Radio revolution is already appearing in the UK, precisely because of the public service remit and funding of the BBC.
As a final, ironic footnote, I think the BBC will be both the first to really launch full on into podcasting and the last to ‘switch off’ analogue broadcast, precisely because of their public reach remit.
(Original link via Dave Winer.)