musing

[ajva]

Random pensification sparked by a comment from josh_the_cat in adjectivemarcus's journal.

It's really annoying when people go on and on about a subject you know a lot about, and they quite clearly know very little and are wrong about many things, but you have to listen to them because 'everyone is entitled to their opinion'. I had this experience yesterday, when I was in a debate with someone about the implications of the BBC threatening to pull its channels from BSkyB. Now, this is my job. But they didn't see that as a reason that I might be any more right than them. It used to piss me off no end also when people would give advice about music and the band. Fucking endlessly. Everyone's pet subject, you see. 'You should send a demo tape to record companies'. 'You should dress like X'. 'You should play a festival'. 'You need to sharpen your sound'. I really used to hate that.

Comments

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Phew. This is quite a big topic. OK - selected highlights:

What about Freeview? It's a collaboration between BBC and BSkyB but if this goes through a 'DTH Freeview' platform might come into being to compete with Sky. So universal free digital TV would instantly become available; analogue switch-off becomes a little more practical, and terrestrial Freeview would then serve no obvious purpose.

Sky is legally obliged to continue carrying all channels on its EPG, but not yet clear whether e.g. BBC1 is entitled to channel 101.

The Astra 2D satellite is not *quite* focused on the UK. It can be picked up in parts of France, Spain and Italy - will sports rights have to be renegotiated? What about Hollywood film studios that have separate contracts with French/Spanish/Italian companies? The BBC argues that people would have to faff about with retuning their dishes to pick up the correct signal, which would mean losing all the channels they get in the first place. so they probably won't. Don't think that'll wash with the major studios, though.

I an Scottish and live in London. If this goes through, I could choose to watch BBC Scotland in my house. Currently I cannot do this. Advertisers target people by region and would be unable to do so. London would be a particular problem, as an unmeasurable volume of people choose to watch the regional BBC of their choice. How then would advertisers target a single London audience using TV?

So other media might be more heavily used, TV less so - leading to a whole set of new consequences.

What if ITV followed suit? TV advertising rates are measured and negotiated against what ITV has been charging recently. This is still the case despite the fact it has been losing audiences over the past few years. But it might not ride out such a decline in TV adspend, which would mean a restructuring of the entire TV ad sales industry.

There is some feeling within the industry that the BBC is bluffing. The Communications Bill is about to go through the House of Lords. Perhaps the BBC is using this to push for an amendment giving the public broadcasters special recognition (i.e. forcing Sky to give them a discount). Currently they are forced to pay whatever Sky feels like charging, which is the standard commercial rate, or £17m a year for the BBC.

Incidentally, the level of debate I was facing was comments like : "But I think that Sky is better than BBC." I found this kind of statement difficult to answer.

[lovingboth]

Some of that is already the case - eg you can get British TV in northern France and Benelux to such an extent that Dutch papers include the channels in their TV listings.

Another point I thought of on the way back home was planning law - at one point (and I don't remember seeing any changes) one satellite dish was ok (with some exceptions if you were living in a conservation area) but a second one needed formal planning permission.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Some of that is already the case - eg you can get British TV in northern France and Benelux to such an extent that Dutch papers include the channels in their TV listings.

It's not as widespread as all that, Ian. There is indeed a little overspill. Some Dutch viewers, for example, can receive BBC1 and 2, as well as Belgian channels TV1, Ketnet and Canvas, and ARD and ZDF from Germany. That's *some*. Once it goes beyond *some*, then it becomes a big issue, which is what we're talking about here. Also, remember we're also talking about a lot more channels, too.

Another point I thought of on the way back home was planning law - at one point (and I don't remember seeing any changes) one satellite dish was ok (with some exceptions if you were living in a conservation area) but a second one needed formal planning permission.

This is irrelevant, really. You just point your dish at whatever satellite you want to receive your telly from. If it's an encrypted signal (like BSkyB) then you have to pay for some technology (box, smartcard etc.) that will decrypt it. But a dish is a dish is a dish. I don't think there are going to be so many people wanting both services at once that extra dishes are going to spring up all over the place.