BBC First Content Major To Put All TV Archives on the Net.

The BBC last week came to the historic decision to make its archives available as a digital video-on-demand download, but instead of using it to refinance the corporation, the BBC, bless 'em, appears to be planning to make it free to everyone in the world over the Internet. The decision comes from none other than Greg Dyke, the director general of the BBC, speaking at the Edinburgh TV festival.

The decision could single-handedly trigger a massive shift to broadband in order to view the archive globally, instead of paying for premium content from elsewhere. The BBC currently gathers something like $5 billion a year from the British television audience in TV licenses under a government mandate, and uses this money to make programs and provide two core analogue TV channels to which it has recently added many new digital channels.

Dyke didn't specify a timeframe for the IP delivery, but said it would include radio programs and be called the BBC Creative Archive. He said it would be free to everyone so long as they didn't use the material commercially. But he never specifically said that it would be available outside the UK. Faultline has pushed hard to see the BBC give its programs free-of-charge to those that have funded it, but believes that it must sell VoD services to people outside the UK. As far as we can see this has not been ruled out.

The BBC has one of the best television archives in the world, and although the decision is both brave and a breakthrough for IP TV in the future, it will have many obstacles before it can be approved. First off much of the BBC archive is not yet in digital form, but the BBC has set itself up as a service provider to help other organizations digitize their work, so it should have the capacity to accelerate the transition to digital. Having launched its own digital channels the BBC is already committed to digitizing much of its archive.

But if the archive was made available just days after original programs were screened, then UK viewers might feel that it was not worth buying a TV license to view the programs and as UK law currently sits, programs that are not broadcast would not need a TV license. And if it was made available internationally, then it would cause uproar from viewers - why should they pay to fund original programming year upon year, just to have that programming given free to the world.

Dyke said, "I believe that we are about to move into a second phase of the digital revolution, a phase which will be more about public than private value; about free, not pay services; about inclusivity, not exclusion. In particular, it will be about how public money can be combined with new digital technologies to transform everyone's lives."

This move from a progressive technology-literate content organization is going to cause a huge upheaval among its competitors and the BBC's experiment with broadband will become a focal point of digital broadcasting for some time to come. Clearly as details of the strategy emerge, it will become obvious that the BBC will either not deliver over IP outside the UK, or it will charge for such delivery through its BBC Worldwide service, which sells BBC programs abroad to other broadcasters.

Either way Faultline has always said that the BBC has a unique position among the world's broadcasters to embrace broadband without jeopardizing any advertising or other revenues. Now that it has shown that it is brave enough grasp that nettle, the world will never be the same again.

Thanks to our European partner Rethink Research for permission to include the above from its Faultline report. Subscription information is at http://www.rethinkresearch.biz.