Just A Minute

Hi Simon

I remember this, but I read that recent technology changes are allowing them to setup an on demand service via i-player and other devices "Lord Alan Sugar" has a device in mind. I think it will be along the lines of pay per view. Of course the time to move 30 years of tapes to digital will take some time and resources. With the amount of radio and TV hours stored I dont think it will happen too soon tho.

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From: Simon B Kelly <simonbkelly@...>
To: just-a-minute@...
Sent: Friday, 31 August 2012, 12:09
Subject: [just-a-minute] Re: Is the BBC our friend?

 

>
> * a couple of years ago the BBC Director-General talked about opening up all the archives. I haven't heard anything more about it but it seemed like the sort of goal a public broadcaster should aspire to. The US public service broadcaster C-Span has done it, and now has 30 years of political news programmes up for anyone to look at, for free, so it can be done.
>

This has started to happen but it seems to be a very slow process. Last year a few hundred episodes of Desert Island Discs appeared online. Today there are 1571 episodes that you can "download to keep":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs

I'm sure everyone on this list would love this to be extended to JAM and other classic archive programming, but it's probably going to clash with the aim of BBC Worldwide, whose mission is to "maximise profits on behalf of the BBC".

There is a lot of talk about selling TV and radio shows through BBC iPlayer which would definitely be the next logical step. Let's hope it comes to fruition while the baby boomers are still around to enjoy the shows they grew up with...

Simon