Monday, July 14, 2014

Pay per view

Readers will know I have a range of anxieties about the future of the BBC. One amongst many is the impending arrival of the BBC Store - an online rival to iTunes, selling downloads of BBC content from the recent and long-gone archive.  Commendable enterprise, you might say, from BBC Worldwide, but bear with me.

The BBC wants to retain the licence-fee, with some unclear changes that they hope will deal with those who watch their tv online, not live, but within the seven-day catch-up period. There are plans, subject to BBC Trust approval, to extend that window to 30 days - increasing the risks and likelihoods of licence-fee avoidance, unless the loophole is firmly tightened. BBC Store will use the iPlayer to advertise and deliver shows on sale beyond that period. The prices set will be informative. iTunes, for example, is offering downloads of Season 4 of Game of Thrones at £23 now - a Blu Ray DVD, issued at the end of the series, would probably cost £35.  Individual episodes cost £2.49.  Games of Thrones is an expensive production; Call the Midwife is cheaper - BBC Worldwide is currently offering a DVD of Series 3 at £6.99. Adopting the iTunes financial model, of around a third off for a download compared with a hard copy, would produce a price of £4.66.

James Purnell, the moving force behind the privatising much of BBC production, argues against a subscription model for funding the BBC, on the grounds that it would cost £500m just to implement before any money was spent on making content. But here, through the BBC Store, there's BBC-built-machinery which could take money off customers bit-by-bit, paying for just what they use. We're often reminded of the value of the BBC licence-fee, at just 40p a day.  Say I only tuned in once a week, for a bit of the One Show or Strictly - hard to imagine it would cost more than a current Top 40 single on iTunes.

I wish the BBC just sold its stuff on other people's platforms.

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