the last waltz?

DCMS/BERR Think Tank launched today.

A first outing for the new Secretary of State. Many of the speakers were keen to portray a rosy picture of consumer choice and a shift in the balance of power away from the traditional providers and gatekeepers towards the public as consumer participant. Ed Richards, in particular, evangelising on this and saying that this power shift was a "one-way journey". In this he is wrong; there is an inevitable tension between individuals on the one hand and the interests of business on the other; the latter seeks to control, consolidate and extend influence over the former. This is why itunes is proprietorial and why microsoft package Internet explorer. Companies seek to dominate markets - it's in their DNA and runs counter to an ethos whereby the consumer is king.

This same process drives the music business, where 'start ups' or bands are bought up by content aggregators and distributors (record companies) who seek to exert control over how the product is packaged, distributed and sold. Now this may not be an analogy that traditional broadcasters wish to consider in the wee small hours, however, in their nightmares such scenarios must play out (although only on demand, of course).

It wasn't touched on much, if at all, in the session, however, the television business is on the edge of a precipice; if ways are not found to retain control over, and make money out of, the content that is produced, then the companies will die.

My colleague, Lawrence Shaw has also blogged on this event as well.

Vive La France

Just picked up the story on FT.com about Sarkozy's intention to take advertising off state TV and replace revenues with 'taxes on mobile phone operators, internet service providers, plus a levy on the advertising revenues of private television channels'. The intention it would seem is to create a BBC for France.
Each country has a very different broadcasting history and comparisons are not always that helpful, however, if true this proposal is the kind of thing the NUJ has been seeking in a UK context for years.
The current system in the UK whereby the vast majority of public service broadcasting is provided by the BBC in exchange for a public licence fee is sustainable, providing the BBC gets the transition through Bill Gates 'digital decade' right. The trick being not to alienate your core audience by rushing headlong after the new. The jury is out on the current BBC strategy. However, if long term funding for the BBC is uncertain, amongst commercial broadcasters the funding picture is distinctly bleak. Channel Four is asking for Government intervention to bolster and sustain its PSB offering; ITV is currently trying to divest itself of its remaining commitments, killing, in the process, the very goose that laid the golden - licence-to-print - eggs.
We have argued that those commercial operators who benefit from access to broadcast systems in the UK - such as Sky and others, should be obliged to pay a levy allowing others to produce PSB programming. On the other hand. if a commercial entity is committed to producing such programming they could then be given an exemption from the new tax.
It will be interesting to see what happens in France. The marriage between a right wing populist leader who launches a full scale attack on workers rights and a trade union is an unlikely one, however, with so much riding on the outcome, sometimes needs must.

withering on the vine

Talks with ITV about pay and conditions yesterday. The share price is at an all time low. The Grade strategy relies on a massive rise in internet income - multiplying income in this area tenfold by 2010. On this issue there is little detail. Equally within ITV's strategy no account is taken of the potential damage that will be done if ITV abandons PSB commitments. Analysts may not care much about the loss of regional news and programming but the public associate ITV with regionalism and quality content. In the afternoon we went to Westminster to talk about the fight to save ITV regional news, we have the support of more than 150 MP's but we need to galvanise them.