Comments on: Should the BBC recapitalise British Culture?

By: Fermin Bousquet

Fermin Bousquet — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 17:14:00 +0000

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By: Mike Dorey

Mike Dorey — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:15:31 +0000

I am not sure what the parallel is between Mark Thompson and Gordon Brown, BBC and Government? The government did what it needed to rescue a particular sector (banking), but that is what the government are there for. If there is a need to re-float other sectors (and this, again is what governments can and should do. (as long as voters are happy) then thats fine. It isn’t and should not be for the BBC to do that, though. I am puzzelled as to why you think the BBC should do this?

Also, who has chosen to categorise the BBC as ‘a lofty, closed and hesitant creature of the inter-war establishment’ ? Who are you speaking on behalf of here?

By: Paul Murphy

Paul Murphy — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:24:13 +0000

Certainly access to infrastructure and distribution would be a huge step forward. The danger is around the actual content stuff and the way we make it. Would we end up with an even bigger BBC producing more BBC type content, strong in some areas, piss poor in others? The point of C4′s speech radio was not that Radio 4 wasn’t already doing an excellent job, it’s just that without competition we all risk becoming complacent as both producers and consumers.

By: Briantist

Briantist — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:37:06 +0000

Could the BBC’s grassroots developer network Backstage be beefed up to provide a real platform for media and tech startups?

Yes indeed it could.

Another suggestion that was in the Media Guardian the other day is to allow the iPlayer platform to be used for commercial radio and Channel 4.

I know it would be a bit of a pain setting up another couple of versions of the site – and the infrastructure of course – but allowing C4 and commercial radio to leverage the excellence of the BBC iPlayer makes sense from a ‘cultural’ point of view.

By: Nick Reynolds (BBC)

Nick Reynolds (BBC) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:19:59 +0000

Dave – Because of a little thing called “rights”.

By: Alex Murray

Alex Murray — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:02:23 +0000

Less a case of “refloating” the media sector as “stopping it from drowning itself”? There’s plenty enough indies who make a nice enough living from their work with the BBC, in particular the broadcasting super-indies with their regionalised production bases to ensure they get the best from the commissioning process. In FM&T there’s already a few companies who are seemingly reliant on the BBC for a share of their income and who’ve done well from ensuring they can deliver simple services that the internal BBC teams either don’t have time or ability to do.

By: Dave Birch

Dave Birch — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:15:21 +0000

Why doesn’t the BBC just chuck everything on BitTorrent and let other people mashup to kick start the creative economy?

By the way, I don’t get the “open” stuff. I don’t see anything “open” so far — iPlayer won’t even let me copy stuff to my iPhone to watch on the train.

By: Tom Watson

Tom Watson — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:03:31 +0000

A fascinating post, Steve. This American history reader immediately recalls FDR’s de facto capitalization of American culture during the Depression, putting vast public employment projects to work in the arts, funding painters, writers, photographers etc. This created an incredible cultural wave of creation, which is underrated in its influence on art and literature (the war tended to obscure what came before, I think).

I love that last idea – it’s very “social entrepreneur” and fits the start-up mentality that has fueled our creative generation.

Like to hear/read more about this!