Comment: Nick Thomas on the future of the BBC
Don’t take it personal
Especially interesting though was Hall’s vision for a more personalised BBC, the idea that people literally sign up and have an interactive, or dynamic, relationship where the BBC delivers and recommends content based on what the individual viewer consumes.
The notion of recommendation and personalised recommendation is a very hot topic. There’s a kind of narrative emerging that content recommendation is the saviour of everything. In this hybridized, on-demand and linear universe where content is increasingly expensive to produce, the big fear among TV executives is that people won’t be able to find the content they make!
I’m not massively convinced by this.I think that people are very good at recommending and sharing content themselves using existing social media platforms.
It’s not going to happen on iPlayer, it’s going to happen on Twitter and Facebook.
The question is: what will the BBC’s role is in that ecosystem ultimately be?
I’m not sure that recommendation is the silver bullet.
The future of the TV License
Hall has a vision where the income for the BBC continues around the same level or even increases. And he suggests it’s almost inconceivable that it could be anything other than that.
Indeed, the BBC is more popular than people realise. It’s not quite up there with the NHS, but it’s not far off either. I don’t think that any political party has the appetite to completely dismantle it.
As such, the license fee will be updated, and I expect we will continue to see households paying some kind of levy.
Some people in the UK seem to think this is a kind of unique situation but actually there’s a lot of countries, certainly in Europe, that pay a license fee, often more than what’s paid in the UK, and usually for much less of a return.
In the UK we get the most popular TV channel, the most popular radio channels, the most popular website. Arguably, the BBC is effectively justifying its existence.
An olive branch to TV?
It was interesting that Hall resisted the temptation to have a go at Sky. Instead he presented a subtly different position, saying, look, the BBC is part of a very healthy UK TV market – Channel 4’s part of it, ITV’s part of it, but it’s all contingent on the BBC. I think that’s quite a compelling argument.
Meanwhile, one of the digs he did make was at Amazon; I suspect that, if you’re looking for an enemy or a rival to the BBC for the next ten years, it’s going to be Google and Amazon and Netflix, rather than Sky.
Hall seemed to be suggesting that, rather than having this little internal row, all the current TV players should form their wagons in a circle against the likes of Amazon coming in.
http://www.iptv-news.com/2015/03/comment-nick...f-the-bbc/
Don’t take it personal
Especially interesting though was Hall’s vision for a more personalised BBC, the idea that people literally sign up and have an interactive, or dynamic, relationship where the BBC delivers and recommends content based on what the individual viewer consumes.
The notion of recommendation and personalised recommendation is a very hot topic. There’s a kind of narrative emerging that content recommendation is the saviour of everything. In this hybridized, on-demand and linear universe where content is increasingly expensive to produce, the big fear among TV executives is that people won’t be able to find the content they make!
I’m not massively convinced by this.I think that people are very good at recommending and sharing content themselves using existing social media platforms.
It’s not going to happen on iPlayer, it’s going to happen on Twitter and Facebook.
The question is: what will the BBC’s role is in that ecosystem ultimately be?
I’m not sure that recommendation is the silver bullet.
The future of the TV License
Hall has a vision where the income for the BBC continues around the same level or even increases. And he suggests it’s almost inconceivable that it could be anything other than that.
Indeed, the BBC is more popular than people realise. It’s not quite up there with the NHS, but it’s not far off either. I don’t think that any political party has the appetite to completely dismantle it.
As such, the license fee will be updated, and I expect we will continue to see households paying some kind of levy.
Some people in the UK seem to think this is a kind of unique situation but actually there’s a lot of countries, certainly in Europe, that pay a license fee, often more than what’s paid in the UK, and usually for much less of a return.
In the UK we get the most popular TV channel, the most popular radio channels, the most popular website. Arguably, the BBC is effectively justifying its existence.
An olive branch to TV?
It was interesting that Hall resisted the temptation to have a go at Sky. Instead he presented a subtly different position, saying, look, the BBC is part of a very healthy UK TV market – Channel 4’s part of it, ITV’s part of it, but it’s all contingent on the BBC. I think that’s quite a compelling argument.
Meanwhile, one of the digs he did make was at Amazon; I suspect that, if you’re looking for an enemy or a rival to the BBC for the next ten years, it’s going to be Google and Amazon and Netflix, rather than Sky.
Hall seemed to be suggesting that, rather than having this little internal row, all the current TV players should form their wagons in a circle against the likes of Amazon coming in.
http://www.iptv-news.com/2015/03/comment-nick...f-the-bbc/
