myBBCplayer

I don't know how I missed this news release from last weekend, but when I saw it today, I just had to blog it. Reuters says:

"[The BBC,] the publicly-funded broadcaster is testing software called MyBBCPlayer to let users download its TV and radio programing, and plans to use its powerful presence to take its place among Internet media giants like Google and Yahoo."

According to this article and others, the BBC will launch the service to allow subscribers to download current audio and video broadcasts to their computers, PDAs, PMPs and mobile phones. Presumably this will be a free service (at least for UK residents). There is evidence to show that there is a significant amount of demand that the BBC website has experienced with regard to downloading media. There was their experiment with offering 9 of Beethoven's symphonies for a period of a week. During that time there were 1.4 million downloads. Similarly, following the London bombings, there were a whopping 60 million requests for their archived video footage.

This is an organisation that really understands how to meld together old and new media. They were among the first to offer RSS feeds of their news articles, among the first mainstream media to offer podcasts of selected programming. As a highly respected news outlet, they will be ideally placed to satisfy the great demand for fresh programming, news or otherwise, with their renowned selection of news programmes, documentaries, sitcoms and comedies.

It's not hard to envision a point a few months from now, when you can wake up in the morning, sync your video iPod (coming soon!) or your Zen Vision with all the audio and video feeds that your PC has been collecting overnight, run for your train and watch the hour old news on your handheld. Or catch the latest episode of 'Doctor Who' or 'Titty Bang Bang' (ahem!).

What's more interesting is that they also plan to start offering paid downloads of popular music via the BBC site, a la Yahoo! Music and iTMS. UK media companies have cried foul over this aspect of the strategy, claiming that the BBC with its immense 3 billion pound public funding and reach will unfairly encroach on the private sector. This is certainly a fair point. But it may only be valid until 2012.

The BBC's loss of market share to multi-channel television and new digital radio stations has provided fuel to those who want its public funding to be cut or shared with other broadcasters. It has to cope with the real possibility that its public funding (from "TV Licenses") will be trimmed or removed entirely following a review in 2012, and that it will have to rely on money from (horrors!) commercial advertising and other sources.

It's against this backdrop that this move from the Beeb makes sense. Paid downloads of content licensed from other providers as well as a combination of free and paid downloads of its own content will represent a new source of revenue that it can use to offset any loss in income from licensing, thus transforming it to a rather strange creature, answering both to its political masters and the paying public. It could also silence the segments of the British public that resent subsidising the cost of providing news to the rest of the world.

It can be argued that the BBC may eventually restrict its content from those outside the UK by a payment model, a move that will undeniably upset many and eventually diminish the international reach of the respected broadcaster. The effect on the quality and political tilt of its programming, given its changed priorities, will be tougher to predict.

But for heaven's sake, "myBBCplayer"? Couldn't they have picked a better name? The "my" prefix is so 1999...