The Future Challenges For BBC and Public Service Broadcasting

The former BBC director general Lord Birt (and now Tony Blair’s strategy advisor) gave a keynote speech at the biggest TV festival in UK, the Edinburgh International Television Festival, and among other things, talked about the challenges a public service broadcaster like BBC faces in the new digital media world:

– “Watch out over the next decade for a new battle of the boxes, with BT and Sky likely to be the two Goliaths fighting it out to the death….”

– “The electronic programme guides that currently help us navigate the multi-channel universe are not even currently fit-for-purpose and will be antediluvian in an on-demand world. Compare the current generation of slow, clunky television EPGs with Google. If I want to know which live football matches are on TV tonight I have to embark on a slow, manual search through multiple channels. With Google I can find a needle in a haystack in less than a second – the fruits of a search of literally billions of items.”

– “How can we ensure a level playing field for all programme and service providers? Should regulators encourage competing search and navigation systems in the television domain? How will the viewer find ready access to the public service offerings?”

– “Public service broadcasters are going to have to reach out beyond today’s professionals to a new generation of young programme makers who are as adept with DV as they are with a keyboard.”

– “The awesome challenge for the next generation of leaders in public service broadcasting will be to maintain universality amidst fragmentation. The task: to reach out to every kind of individual in an interactive media world which will offer an increasingly personalised viewing experience, in which the old linear broadcast channels will become progressively less important. “

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