1 hours 54 mins ago
If Rupert Murdoch's ears weren't already burning from all the ill words spoken about him in Brighton last night and this morning, they most definitely would have been throughout this meeting.It's fair to say that if television does have a future in its current form, the consensus on the panel is that it won't be thanks to the bogeyman of the media world.
The major focus of the seminar was Project Canvas, a major collaboration between the BBC, ITV, Five and BT to usher in the next generation of TVs driven by super-fast broadband.
The service will allow viewers to pick and choose what content to access at what time, with programs streamed from the Internet much like the Beeb's iPlayer.
Unlike the iPlayer however, the open platform will allow anyone to make their content available to view. Organisations like the NHS and British Film Institute were mentioned as being interested, although quite what films the NHS makes is anyone's guess.
The BBC Trust is due to make a decision on whether to fund the project sometime soon, but the major stumbling block, according to BBC chief John Tate, remains Sky's refusal to engage with the group over making it's content available at a reasonable price.
All the panellists voiced their wish for OFCOM to get involved in opening up Sky's content to promote livelier competition, much like BT did when they relinquished their stranglehold on the broadband market.
Unfortunately, OFCOM's reluctance to challenge Sky does not look like changing any time soon, especially if the Conservatives follow up on their plans to break up the regulator's empire. Reducing OFCOM's scope and budget would render it worse than impotent in dealing with the media giant. Perhaps that is why Rupert Murdoch is so keen for David Cameron to be the next Prime Minister.
So the future of television is still undecided at the moment; Internet TVs do sound like a logical innovation, but for them to work the Government would need to quickly implement the £6 broadband tax to fund a massive overhaul of cable infrastructure. The problem with this is that nobody likes paying more tax, so it's yet another political stick that the Conservatives will use to beat Labour with unless the argument is made and made well. It hasn't been yet.
Source:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/11/20090930/tpl-the-future-of-television-0a1c1a1.htmlIsn't it evil to use the media to control political outcomes?
