RIG Fights Back Over BBC On-Demand Proposals

Posted on 5th March 2007

In another example of the BBC giant attempting to trample the indie sector, the recently unveiled BBC Trust proposals for Online and iPlayer have provoked anger in the independent radio sector. Following a Market Impact Assessment by Ofcom that utterly failed to notice the burgeoning commercial exploitation and Download To Own (DTO) markets developed by radio indies, and instead focus its attention on the independent and commercial TV sectors, the BBC Trust revealed their final proposals for their new On-Demand services:

* Listen Again to be increased from 7 to 30 days

* Series Stacking to be introduced

* BBC Archive (docs & features) available as non DRM free to own downloads

In fact, all of the above are designed for the BBC TV market, but in a perfect example of how the BBC ignores the specific needs of the radio sector, the same rules are being applied to radio. RIG is currently creating its formal response to the proposals:

* Listen Again will only be increased in line with increases in budgets to cover the indies' underlying rights and to cover the additional costs of purchasing such rights from other underlying rights holders (actors, writers, etc...)

* Series Stacking is acceptable so long as the process does not interfere with commercial exploitation

* The BBC Archive should not be made available for free, or without DRM. The indie sector has spent 2 years building up the DTO market through services such as iTunes, Audible and Audioville, and while the proposals protect the audiobook and classical music markets, there MUST be similar protection for docs and features.