Corporate over Viewer

One of the biggest problems I have with OfCom is that they take the interests of commercial companies who’s only purpose is to serve it’s shareholders into account before and ahead of the consumer.

This has been highlighted more evidently than usual with the recent comments on the BBCs proposed iPlayer. I’ve seen designs and mock-ups of the iPlayer and it’s brilliant – it’s 4oD on heat.

But most of what makes it brilliant and gives licence fee payers what they’ve been asking for might well have to be taken out if OfCom get their way.

A few comments on the Guardian Organ Grinder story on the subject said a similar thing to what I was thinking. The public pay for the BBC programming and we should be able to download it and watch it on our terms (within copyright limits obviously) if we want to.

This whole nonsense of saying “ooo but it might affect commercial sales” or “it might prevent or impact on other companies wanting to sell online” is rubbish. The BBC are making BBC programming available – if ITV or SKY want to make their content available on demand then DO IT! Channel 4 have managed to make it work AND charge for shows.

Johnny Smooth said “Why shouldn’t viewers be allowed to download entire series of BBC shows? We paid for them.” This from treetopsquash “This is totally ridiculous. I’ve had a look at iPlayer (a friend is lucky enough to be in the pilot) and it’s an exciting innovative approach to non-linear TV. What the hell do Ofcom expect the BBC to do? Say- let’s make what we offer a bit crappier so the others won’t feel as threatened?”

Then SoMReebot said exactly what I was thinking “the fact that commercial stuff is crap is no reason to hobble the BBC or to prevent the rollout of a worthwhile service.”

The iPlayer is the first step towards what the public want and have been asking for for years – easy access to BBC programming and archive content when we want it.

It will piss a LOT of people off if the BBC Trust give in to OfComs demands that the interests of a few shareholders be put before the interests of the great British public.

Oh and do you want to know something about the iPlayer? Think Pink!