BBC's iPlayer's Prospects Looking Bleak 369
An anonymous reader writes "The future of iPlayer, the BBC's new online on-demand system for delivering content, is continuing to look bleaker. With ISPs threatening to throttle the content delivered through the iPlayer, consumers petitioning the UK government and the BBC to drop the DRM and Microsoft-only technology, and threatened legal action from the OSC, the last thing the BBC wanted to see today was street protests at their office and at the BBC Media Complex accompanied by a report issued by DefectiveByDesign about their association with Microsoft."
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
The difference is that UK citizens are required to pay a licence fee to receive BBC content. It is so difficult for ordinary citizens to get out of paying the licence fee that it is in effect a universal tax. If the BBC then decides to release an MS-only product I (as a UK citizen) am in effect being taxed by the Government to support MS. Regardless of my views on MS, the BBC, etc, this is pretty unacceptable. This is like the BBC releasing content that only works on Sony (for example) televisions.
Net neutrality no threat to the BBC (Score:4, Insightful)
The number one non-over-the-air channel, Sky One, is owned by the same people who own the satellite broadcast system. (In the UK TV service to households with reasonable disposable income is, or was, split into cable vs satellite. Over the air is probably more common but not really in the same market. Outside London there are no real alternatives yet.)
Sky have denied the Sky One (and a few other not very interesting channels) license to Virgin. This has resulted in a massive exodus from cable. As a TV watching friend of mine pointed out "it's not worth the grief from the missus - and the kids would yell at me too". My choice would have been emigration without kids or wife, but he chose to switch to Satellite/Sky instead.
What does this have to do with internet TV, which has no presence yet to be missed? Well, the BBC has a tendency to plug new services endlessly on their channels. There is no one in the UK who doesn't hear or see something from the BBC every single week. Computer penetration is also very high, it's a small island so broadband is readily available too (cable and DSL, the latter from a number of ISPs). Even the people who won't see TV adverts listen to Radio 4 (available over the internet for free - give it a go! - especially the comedy) giving them a direct and unique line to highly educated and very powerful people.
So, a large number of people who have already shown that TV is important enough to make them pick up the phone, will get bombarded with adverts for a new service that they can probably access. Until they get home and try to get to it and see:
The BBC can't give you access to the iPlayer because unlike every reputable ISP yours is trying to charge you extra and we said we wouldn't be part of it. Here is a list of ISPs, that you probably can switch to with a single phone call, that are doing the right thing.
Even if the ISP blocks the error page the cost of handling the phone calls to customer support *alone* will probably make the whole thing impossible to maintain for very long.
Now, it won't come to this. A backroom deal will be cut and the whole thing will go away - precisely because the ISPs have no possible way to win.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
pissed off (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DRM is the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
You could probably make a case for the BBC restricting access to their content to licence-payers only (although I wouldn't), but instead they've gone with a completely inappropriate restriction of "Microsoft-users only".
The current iPlayer implementation really stinks - it stinks of pushy salesmen and weak-minded decision takers. It flies in the face of many decades of the BBC standing on principles and doing The Right Thing(TM), resisting commercial pressure. Now they've gone to the opposite extreme and the outrage is perfectly justified.
HTH
Re:so don't offer it at all. (Score:2, Insightful)
Bit of a rock & a hard place thing here... (Score:5, Insightful)
gesture towards restricting the redistribution of material which doesn't totally belong to it.
To also respond to the grandparent: the big thing here is that the BBC is not a company in the same sense that (say)
US cable networks are. As Douglas Adams used to observe "The BBC's not in the same business as the other TV stations" (or words to that effect): their customers are not corporate advertisers. The BBC is funded by the UK TV licencing fee, & has therefore already been paid for by every Windows, Mac, Linux, *BSD, Solaris, etc. user in the UK with a TV licence, so it clearly is unfair for the Beeb to release iPlayer access to their programmes only to Windows users. (In the interests of full disclosure, btw, I'm a British ex-pat who only uses OS X & (GNU/)Linux).
I do feel some measure of sympathy for the BBC about this, though. As has been noted elsewhere, it should be considered admirable that the BBC are trying to make as much of their programming available online as is feasible without charging. Unfortunately, the only way they can think of at the moment to reconcile that ideal with the legal realities of their programme-producing partnerships & so on is to present them with some sort of anti-duplication measure, hence the DRM. However, my sympathy for the BBC on this issue is tempered by the information that one of the senior execs in charge of making the decisions is an ex-Microsoft Windows Media Player guy, which does tend to suggest scope for conflict of interest on his part.
On balance, I think that the pressure the BBC is feeling reflects the fact that it's pushing the boundaries on making their content freely available online, which is a forward-thinking policy in general, & should be applauded. The woes listed in the summary are largely due to some short-term lack of wisdom in the means currently being used to attain those goals.
Re:What Happened? (Score:5, Insightful)
If that is the case, why should taxpayers have to pay for DRM-infested media that was sponsored by their tax money?
The problem is why should UK taxpayers pay for people in other countries to have free media that they didn't pay for?Re:The real issue is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
DRM is a Non Issue - Just Don't use it (Score:3, Insightful)
Alternatively I can catch the programming 6 months to a year later on BBC America or the SciFi Channel with commercials and reduced resolution.
Whatever they do on their web site is a non-issue, although I'm a bit annoyed that I have to use a UK based proxy server to access some of the program guides.
Re:The BBC's Core (Score:3, Insightful)
From The Sunday Times
August 12, 2007
Re:What Happened? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've always thought this to be a narrow-minded viewpoint, people from around the world watching British TV will help the export industries. Perhaps more Americans will learn about how to make a proper cup of tea (honestly, I heard you chaps don't even use boiling water!), buy-in some UK brands: I recommend Yorkshire Tea--am not affilliated with them, it's just bloomin' good tea. Next will come the Digestive biscuits, you've got to have a biscuit to dunk in your tea, the local grocery store in Canada imports these from the UK so there's obviously a market, real ales, DVDs of British shows, and a boost to the tourism industry. At the local farmers market here, across the pond, you can even buy 'Real Men Watch Coronation St.' t-shirts (no I don't own one, and yes I know C. St. is produced by ITV, that's beside the point).
So you might complain about foreigners watching shows paid for by your tax £'s, but consider the tax money the export and tourism industry will make back from a greater awareness of British culture. When put up against the cost of distribution: a slightly higher bandwidth bill for the Beeb, the benefits far outweigh the costs. The net result will be more tax collected from UK companies.
Re:There is no uproar (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:DRM is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The goals of the protest were about DRM and proprietary software.
Re:What Happened? (Score:3, Insightful)
At best, an argument can be made that there are additional bandwidth costs for internet distribution. In which case, the BBC should just limit downloads to people in the UK. But there is absolutely no need to restrict distribution - if someone else wants to pay for the bandwidth to share a show worldwide, then they should not be stopped from doing so.
Re:This is absurd. The world needs perspective. (Score:2, Insightful)
If I lived in the UK and was forced to pay for a TV license (instated by the BBC), I would expect to have equal access to the programming for which I payed, regardless of my operating system and browser of choice. I choose freedom by using free software, so I would be ineligible to make use of a service for which I've already paid.
Government agencies forcing people to do business with monopolistic corporations? Yeah, that's definitely protest-worthy.
Re:The BBC's Core (Score:3, Insightful)
I love the Beeb, I think it's an amazing institution and I believe that Murdoch is a baby-feasting spawn of Satan and a genuine threat to Democracy, BUT part of our open society is being able to provide a counterpoint which the Times is doing - just because they are owned by the aforementioned hellspawn please don't accuse them of lying. Don't accept everything the BBC says as perfect truth either.
The BBC does do a very good job - probably the best in the World (IMHO) of balanced reporting, certainly when compared to bile like Fox news (gak, "news" is certainly a misnomer there...) but there is also an obvious liberal bias. This may reflect that Britain is a reasonably liberal society.
Remember - "Question everything including what I am telling you now."
Re:The BBC's Core (Score:4, Insightful)
As pointed out by another poster, The Sunday Times is owned by Murdoch who has no qualms at all about forcing a very strong right-wing bias on all his publications. His orifices generally delight in lampooning the BBC (and any other institution that competes with Murdoch) whenever possible and factual accuracy is deemed optional in these cases. I'd ignore any such article from his publications, especially one written from an "insider perspective" that is 40 years old!
Anyway, the whole idea of a pervasive "liberal bias" in the BBC is nonsense - even if you think such a thing exists, so what? Given how poorly the Tories do in the polls even after years of Labour disillusionment and given how left-wing the UK is in comparison to the US, perhaps such a bias would just reflect the bias of the British people?
Re:DRM is the problem (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:DRM is the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
DRM is not compatable with this purpose. Particularly when it is beyond the reach of law.
There are others who have differing opinions about what purpose the BBC should be put to, and they are driving the DRM.
This isn't a debate, it's a contest between small groups who have an opinion on the subject.
Re:DRM is the problem (Score:1, Insightful)
The difference is that those broadcasts are being done using an open standard (DVD-T). You can buy a digibox from any company and receive those broadcasts. iPlayer is as if the BBC decided to broadcast it's digital channels using a special Sony-only (Or whoever) standard for which only Sony could produce receivers. Do you think, if the BBC had done this, that people may have been a bit pissed off?
Re:The BBC's Core (Score:2, Insightful)