“The group said that it would also raise the issues with the the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and MPs on the Media Select Committee,” The Beeb reports. “The BBC has said it plans to launch its first news app on the iPhone in April, followed by one for its sport content.”
“‘Not for the first time, the BBC is preparing to muscle into a nascent market and trample over the aspirations of commercial news providers,’ said David Newell, director of the NPA,” The Beeb reports. “He said that the market for iPhone news apps was “a unique and narrow commercial space” that would be ‘distorted’ by the BBC apps. ‘This is not, as the BBC argues, an extension of its existing online service, but an intrusion into a very tightly defined, separate market.'”
“The BBC Trust, the body that regulates the BBC, said that the proposals to build the apps had not been referred to it for approval but it had been made aware of the plans,” The Beeb reports. “‘The BBC Executive has advised the Trust that it is satisfied that these plans to deliver BBC News, Sport and iPlayer content via smartphone apps fall within the terms of its existing BBC service licence and that the plans do not constitute a significant change to the service.’ A spokesperson for the BBC said that its online service licence, granted by the BBC Trust, was ‘quite explicit in allowing the BBC to repurpose its online content for consumption on mobile devices.'”
The Beeb reports, “But Mr Newell said the development of apps ‘for a niche market does not sit comfortably with the BBC’s mission to broadcast its content to a wide, general audience. We strongly urge the BBC Trust to block these damaging plans, which threaten to strangle an important new market for news and information.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Not confident that you can compete and with nothing actionable to litigate? Bitch, whine, and moan.
There is something to this though, the majority of licence payers do not own iPhones or iPod touches, so this would be denying them a service to which they have paid for.
MDN is defending the government-run socialist BBC over independent private entrepreneurs? Shocking!
——RM
That’s true crabapple but a lot of license payers don’t have HD TVs or HD boxes so should the BBC scrap it’s HD channel or keep it going in readiness for the day when everyone has access to HD – just as it’ll be doing with it’s apps service?
Handbags at 10 paces
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I have no love for the BBC but as Crabapple states, “the majority of license payers do not own iPhones or iPods Touches”, I would have to defend the BBC on this.
The app would be an “addition to” the license. Big freak’n deal if they own a iPhone or iPod Touch. Those that do would be able to use the service with their devices. If someone has the device but no computer or home internet connection then it gives them an alternative to sell them a license they wouldn’t have.
Hell, I’d have a iPod Touch way before I spent money on a TV.
Seems to me that the currently privately owned newspapers have been caught with their nickers down.They’ve had several years to get their very own apps out on the iPhone and are dragging their feet on it. Considering everything, how long does the Beeb have to wait before they finally get their go. If the private chappies don’t get around to it for another one, two , three years or more, does that leave the Beeb stuck in the mud?
What bunch of luddites. Good luck to the Beeb.
Perhaps independent companies wouldn’t need to whinge so much if they made quality material like the BBC does. Honestly, most people watch/use the BBC not because they are a completely dominant company that overshadows all others, but because they don’t churn out crap like the other media companies.
Oh, and I would bet that one Mr Rupert Murdoch had something to do with this…
And to what extent is Rupert Murdoch behind this action I wonder? Having manipulated a naive Government to allow Sky to gain a dominant position he is now intent on making sure that they and his newspapers retain it.
As for Lord Robbin it would seem if people are that ignorant about the ownership of the BBC they need all the education they can get from a news App.
Yay beeb on my iPad
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@ Crabapple: I’d bet that a lot of BBC license payers have iPhones or iPod Touches, as a fair amount of them will be unemployed and on State benefits blowing our taxes on the likes of HD TVs and iPhones. Those that aren’t on benefits will probably be working or middle class and have iPhones (or Blackberry’s) anyway.
As TheMightyFinder and spyinthesky have said, this stinks of NewsCorp throwing it’s weight about and trying to monopolise the pay-for-content news services…
God Bless the Beeb and it’s free news service (to license payers and everyone alike)
Bitch, whine, and moan – the American way.
Oh! These are the Brits.
Did they teach it to us, or did we teach it to them.
I object to paying my tv licence fee to line the pockets of the likes of Wogan, Ross and the rest of the overpaid talentless so-called stars of the “Beeb” but if I want in depth news and sports info I look no further than the BBC website. Murdoch and Co can go sh*g themselves as far as I am concerned. I want BBC apps on my iPhone asap!
Niche market, huh? Interpretation – you are terrified that you won’t be able to squeeze some dollars out of consumers, so you attempt to coerce and marginalize.
Niche market? The current iPhone and iPod touch units owned by consumers represent a very large potential market, dwarfing even the big newspapers and the viewership of the major TV news shows. Maybe USA Today is larger. But the iPhone and iPod touch will continue to sell in the tens of millions. And the iPad will add many millions on top of that – tens of millions if my guess is correct. So Apple will continue to add tens of millions of potential readers/viewers while the existing news markets shrink. Fear is in the air…
Is there any media in any English-speaking country Rupert Murdoch hasn’t screwed up? I don’t think so.
These objections sound like a Monty Python skit. I suspect the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and MPs is in the building next to the Ministry of Silly Walks.
I am happy for this. The BBC’s news is second to none. However, I really do wish that they would open up some of their Arts content to an App, such as Plays and other Documentaries. You can download some in podcasts, but it would be nice to have them all in one place.
By the way, the Newspapers do have a point in regards to the Beeb taking over the internet BBC-style. If you put in a search for BBC in podcasts, you will find no less than 650 different podcasts available !! That has to be a record of some kind. 650 different shows that are put on either daily, weekly or monthly.
The BBC got the internet !!!
@crabapple
thats crazy logic… the bbc is denying them nothing – its just an extra service… the content is already on the web – people without computers can’t see that either… Its available on portable tv’s – people without portable tv’s can’t watch tv outside their home… its available in hi-def – people with old tv’s can’t see it in hi-def…
the corporations who publish papers are just bitching and moaning about not being able to make extra profit at the expense of the british citizens…
I just wish the BBC World News app were available in the USA. LiveStation.com has it available for sale in several countries on the iTunes App Store, but not here.
The BBC hasn’t had much success in getting U.S. cable carriage for that channel, so they might as well bypass the cable companies and try selling it as an iPhone app here.
Murdoch was behind British Competition Competition blocking ‘Project Kangaroo’ which was initiative by all but one British broadcaster (can you guess who’s) so included BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, Virgin, et al to create unified version of iPlayer for universal IPTV access in the UK.
News Corp plan to bring Hulu to the UK, so they obviously hated the idea of an established rival platform.
Similarly, New Corp have Sky News App and others in the Apple App store, don’t see why the BBC shouldn’t either. The corporation has a history of technological innovation, and is simply continuing this.
As to BBC competitors hating BBC iPhone because it’s “unfair”, you are private sector companies — shouldn’t you be out-competing the public sector? Any private sector company that cannot out perform civil servants / government … does it really deserve to be in business?
Amen to all that.
The Beeb rocks, except for Wogan, Ross, Clarkson et al.
Number 1 fan of Best Broadcasting Corporation.
Hrrrmpphh! A corporate name change is in order as the Beeb is a world treasure.
Newspapers are so ….. yesterday. I mean something so transient in nature, so volatile, so unpredictable, so challenged in length of shelf-life …. it belongs in the ether where it can be outed easily and immediately without the inertia of pressing ink on paper and then distributing it. That’s Victorian, Antediluvian,
@crabapple,
You’re basically saying that the Beeb should go for the lowest common denominator in its license payers. There’s got to be some that don’t have a computer or internet, so do they stop providing a website?
If you can’t beat ’em, whine incessantly.
“The BBC’s content is so much better than ours, if people can get it on their phone, hey’ll never look at us again”
It’s called competition, and ironically it is a very capitalist way for the Beeb to go.
Since many of you have chosen to address your redress to me directly, I feel it only fair to redirect the redress!!
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Libraries in the UK offer free internet access to any and everybody who wants to access it for a minimum of one hour but extendendable if the demand is low. In some housing estates, free wi-fi is provided to the community, I believe this is an effort to get those people not only motivated but in the long run trained enough to acquire employment (verification needed).
It is possible to argue that the proliferation of computers at home is far greater than the proliferation of smart phones particularly those in the iPhone/Blackberry category. So it is reasonable to conclude that even though the majority of smartphone owners also have web access via Mac’s/PC’s, the majority of TV licence payers do not own an iPhone or iPod touch. If the BBC is proposing that the iPhone Apps offer new and exclusive material that is not accessible via Mac/PC web, then they would be in breach of their mission as laid down by the trust’s guidelines. If the Apps offer a direct one touch access to existing content on their website, then it is fair to conclude that that is not engaging in unfair competitive advantage to the other media news providers particularly as they have already had to reduce the content that they used to offer in order not to kill of the other TV companies advertising driven websites.
Don’t you wish you had accepted my earlier submission as it was compared to this long winded version?
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