Blogger-In-Residence: "Common Platform" & an Open 91Èȱ¬
Post categories: open standards
| 15:25 UK time, Tuesday, 30 September 2008
N.B. Editor's note: Steve Bowbrick will be working for 91Èȱ¬ Future Media & Technology as a "blogger-in-residence" for the next six months looking at, and talking about, ideas for a and the 91Èȱ¬ becoming more open. Make him welcome!
, Nick Reynolds and [no relation] at the Social Media Champions session at FM&T's Open Week
It's a truism that institutions that are important in one era find it difficult to maintain their relevance in the next. Everyone knows that the 91Èȱ¬ in its second great era - the one starting about now - is going to be markedly different from the one that dominated the British broadcast ecology for the last 80 years. So far, so obvious.
The question, of course, is how will it differ? What will a national broadcaster funded by its viewers look like once the network era is properly underway? Can it survive in its current form at all?
Big questions. Happily. not ones that I plan to answer. Which brings me to my new job here.
I've been blogger-in-residence at 91Èȱ¬ FM&T for a few days (I don't have my staff pass yet but I'm on the Beeb part of the microblogging system). I realise I've made it to 45 years old without ever working at the 91Èȱ¬, and it's genuinely exciting:
I find a big, breezy rather optimistic place full of brainy people (lots of them quite young) doing a huge variety of interesting things, many of which are aimed in one way or another at answering those big questions.
And the word that's on more or less everybody's lips is "openness".
• How open can we be?
• Should we share this insight with outsiders?
• Should we be opening our banks of content and code to licence fee payers, entrepreneurs and organisations?
And for the 91Èȱ¬, these questions are given an extra urgency by the context: by the chaotic , by Ofcom's apparently unending , by the of the Kangaroo JV and even by Channel 4's bid for the social media high ground with .
So, fear of notwithstanding, over the next few months, I plan to roam the 91Èȱ¬'s corridors - with my trusty guide Nick Reynolds - meeting everyone who has an opinion or an interesting project or a problem to solve with some relevance to the 91Èȱ¬'s increasing openness and readiness to share.
I've been writing about this sort of thing for a long time (I've got cuttings going back to 1996) and not long ago, I helped to organise an event at Broadcasting House called , which some of you will have attended.
You should bookmark or subscribe to [], where I'll be blogging everything.
Meanwhile, if you'd like to know more, or if you'd like to contribute to the project, from inside the 91Èȱ¬ or outside, drop me a line or visit (and forgive me while I get the site finished!). And if you work for the Beeb and you see me in a corridor, stop me and say something entertaining.
Steve Bowbrick is blogger-in-residence, 91Èȱ¬ Future Media & Technology.
Comment number 1.
At 9th Jan 2009, robinmirror wrote:I just came about this post by random. On the internet that are a lot of posts about how the 91Èȱ¬ are biased. To be honest I don't agree with them and I think corporations like these are just easy targets.
I hope your 6 months have taught you well Steve.
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 13th Jun 2009, U14033173 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)
Comment number 3.
At 8th Sep 2009, felicioo wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 3)
Comment number 4.
At 8th Sep 2009, slatwalls wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 4)
Comment number 5.
At 8th Sep 2009, EggOnAStilt wrote:Eggactly what is Nick doing with his left hand in that picture? Is it one of those funny greeting handshakes for "members" of the 91Èȱ¬ Future Media & Technology Dept?
A demonstration even, of said secret hand signal of welcome for the new boy Steve ? Hehe.
Or is it a warning.
"Be careful Steve don't upset the messageboarders or they'll have your n*ts, they've been after mine for months".
Complain about this comment (Comment number 5)
Comment number 6.
At 8th Sep 2009, Faye Tsar wrote:Thanks El Duderino for sharing:
Complain about this comment (Comment number 6)
Comment number 7.
At 8th Sep 2009, HD wrote:"How open can we be?"
"Should we be opening our banks of content and code to licence fee payers...".
I think the 91Èȱ¬ should be as open as possible, I also think the 91Èȱ¬ (or the EBU/91Èȱ¬ through it's membership of the EBU) should open it's banks of content up to the license fee payers who paid to get the content produced. I think 91Èȱ¬ productions, including EBU (which the 91Èȱ¬ is a member of) productions such as Eurovision, should be released onto Blu-ray, seeing as these were funded using payments made by the license fee payers. And if costs are an issue I think the 91Èȱ¬ should be open enough to state what costs are involved and which EBU members decide on which Blu-ray titles to release and when, seeing how the 91Èȱ¬ (and therefore the UK license fee payers) pay so much towards the production of these TV programmes.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 7)
Comment number 8.
At 9th Sep 2009, felicioo wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 8)
Comment number 9.
At 13th Sep 2009, U14134634 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 9)