Mass media moving mico

I was going to lump a number of subjects together in one post but I ended up writing to much and would have created a post much longer than what is fair on anyone trying to read it.

Instead I’m going for them on their own. Of all the things I was looking to write about this is the most exciting. In fact probably the most exciting development since the announcement of the iPlayer about a century ago (or at least it seems that long anyway).

Basically the BBC are going to be putting a large chunck of programming on to the torrent based video platform from the people at Azureus - it’s called Zudeo and is currently filled with trailers, student films, music videos and indie clips.

Apparently the Beeb will have it’s own paid content channel on the platform and will use it to sell programming to the North American market.

It will however have DRM and will only work within the Zudeo player. Despite this it’s still an interesting development. Basically the BBC have moved in with the supposed ‘bad guys’ instead of joining someone like Apple or Amazon - actually the BBC have done all three in a way that the BBC seems to enjoy doing.

I don’t think it will work within the UK but to be honest that really doesn’t matter as, from around March (or maybe sooner given that everyone in the BBC seems to be working on it at the moment), the iPlayer will be launching.

It will allow you to download near on everything the BBC puts out every week for up to seven days after broadcast. You’ll have to watch it within seven days of its first play but you can keep it on your computer for a couple of months without playing it.

This brings me on to my next, related point.

The BBC Archive

Apparently a trial will start in early 2007 where 1000 hours of multi genre content will be available to a limited number of users to test servers, response time and usability. There will also be 50 hours of TV and radio programmes (from the archive) for general access on the BBC website.

Apparently “the aim is to test audience demand for a public service archive content and understand how they want to access it”.

Ashley Highfield, the BBC Director of Future Media & Technology told Broadcast Magazine “as part of our commitment to making our public service content more personal, more convenient and more relevant for all our audiences, we are developing a portfolio of services to offer licence fee payers access to the BBC’s archive”.

The Archive content trial will be an extension of the iPlayer app. In fact I get the impression every bit of video on bbc.co.uk will become part of the iPlayer, at the very least in terms of branding.

The last line in the broadcast story was the most interesting. “Subject to the licence fee settlement, the archive proposition will be submitted for approval to teh BBC Trust in the second half of 2007″.

THREE Cowards

While on the subject of video online. According to Broadcast Magazine, the BBC has commissioned the group behind the ‘Cowards’ live sketch show to take over the BBC THREE website and turn it into an interactive comedy zone. I’m not sure how long this will go on for but apparently the group will have editorial control over the site and will be writing and performing exclusive sketches.

I love this idea, it makes perfect sense to me, it’s a real move forward, well a minor move forward as the BBC and over organisations have played with the idea of web only programming a few times in the past - anyone remember the web video hosts tried by the Beeb a couple of years ago? No? Thought not!

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