News - BBC plans to charge for watching archived iPlayer content

[Ross1]

To be fair, it's not like the iPlayer is free to run - I'm sure it runs up a lot of bandwidth, which has to be paid for. But Would allowing access to "archived" content really increase the bandwidth in use at any given time? Surely the older content won't be anywhere near as popular as the catch-up content.

I'm all for charging international visitors to watch the content, but I don't see why we should be charged when really all it'll take is a few extra hard disks to store the content (which it probably already is on).

Yeah, it doesnt take up any extra storage, because its all there anyway.

I would guess the main cost would be licensing and bandwidth. While they obviously produce a lot of their own content, not everything shown on the BBC is an in house bbc production. We can also consider the impact it would have on a show that would probably get a DVD/blu-ray release.

The point is, even if we consider the BBC is a service, and implementing access to archived content is within easy reach, expecting it all for free, forever, is silly. I think a lot of people would pay up to £5 a month for iplayer as it is, never mind for every single show the bbc has ever made, all one click away.

[tickedon]

I think the BBC really needs to split the content into three categories:

a) Shows the BBC produces and "owns"
b) Shows the BBC commissions and would need to pay ongoing royalties to another party
c) Shows the BBC buy in (e.g. American imported TV)

I would be in favour of "A" being free, "B" being fairly cheap, and "C" at "market rate" (e.g. iTunes, Netflix and similar).

The BBC is required to use 'independent' studios and distributors for a certain percentage of its programmes under the BBC settlements (it can't just produce everything in-house), so I can see why this isn't as simple as "let's swing the archives open for free", before we even get to the costs of bandwidth and technology.

Personally, I love the idea of international distribution subsidising UK watching - it would seem to be the perfect solution!

[Barakka]

The biggest mistake people make about the BBC Licence fee is thinking that they are paying for the BBC, and therefore have lots of rights as a "part owner" to decide how they do business, or some ownership of the content.

Sorry, you're not... the key is in the name, you are paying for a Licence, in the same way you buy a licence for Windows, it doesn't give you rights to directly decide how Microsoft operates.

The BBC Licence fee is paid to give rights to watch and listen to all the live content from the BBC as it is broadcast.

They provided iPlayer as a way to enhance that service buy giving licence payers who had already paid to see content live, the ability to watch it again if they missed it, for a short period after it airs.

The situation has now come about that increasing numbers of people are using iPlayer as the only means to consume BBC content having not purchased the licence to watch it live.

This is what the BBC is looking into, how to licence it to cover all the options, the easiest way to do this may be to introduce a pay-per-view iPlayer on top rather than putting the Licence fee up once the current cap expires.

Makes sense to me, they have realised that the way media is consumed is changing so they're looking at the most effective way to charge for the media so they make the revenue they need to keep creating media.

[aidanjt]

The biggest mistake people make about the BBC Licence fee is thinking that they are paying for the BBC, and therefore have lots of rights as a "part owner" to decide how they do business, or some ownership of the content.

Sorry, you're not... the key is in the name, you are paying for a Licence.

Yes, a TV License, not a BBC content license. The TV License is a tax you're forced by government coercion to pay to finance the BBC, a publicly owned corporation, whether you watch BBC content or not. That's why people think they have part ownership rights, because they do.

[Barakka]

Yes, a TV License, not a BBC content license. The TV License is a tax you're forced by government coercion to pay to finance the BBC, a publicly owned corporation, whether you watch BBC content or not. That's why people think they have part ownership rights, because they do.

The point was that the Licence is seen as giving ownership rights over the BBC and it's content, when it is actually a Licence to view the Live content broadcast in the UK, nothing more. The BBC is owned by the Crown, so yes publicly financed, and is paid by the Government using the funds they get from licensing to provide broadcast programming and an infrastructure to transmit it over.

Out of interest how would you propose they do it ?
Scrap it all together ?

[Pancake]

I wonder if everyone will just pirate everything?... Oh no wait, thats what most poeple do anyway

[aidanjt]

I wonder if everyone will just pirate everything?... Oh no wait, thats what most poeple do anyway

Exactly. Ignore the piracy aspect, and just focus on delivering a first class service for users.

[Hicks12]

The point was that the Licence is seen as giving ownership rights over the BBC and it's content, when it is actually a Licence to view the Live content broadcast in the UK, nothing more. The BBC is owned by the Crown, so yes publicly financed, and is paid by the Government using the funds they get from licensing to provide broadcast programming and an infrastructure to transmit it over.

Out of interest how would you propose they do it ?
Scrap it all together ?

But its like saying...

You have to buy a windows OS before you can go on and use your Linux/mac etc operating systems... it should be removed really or atleast become a more flexible fee! Paying for the infrastructure? but isnt that a bit invalid as companies like sky and virgin provide their own transmission methods and yet dont get this "license fee".

Its a silly outdated method IMO, im getting less and less value for money from it as i find the majority of the shows im interested are getting cancelled (Spooks was a great one...!) yet all the soaps continue running, this is the problem with the system as its a generic approach so more niche interests are ignored as they dont get the 'viewings' required to pass the finance agreement so all the cash cows like EastEnders will continue running forever and hog all the finance from other shows so its a bit meh to me.

Regardless, on to the charge for achived content, fair enough i understand why but i think their own 30 day download thing is good enough, maybe they should concentrate on fixing that software as last time i tried it the downloads took years and it was very buggy

[snootyjim]

...they'd be on certain websites for free within minutes?

You don't think they are already?

[13thmonkey]

wait for it to be repeated, and then watch it within the 7 days.
and you don't have to use it, HDD recorders are a one off payment, one way or another you are paying for it, either the mechanism or the media, its comes down to who has the box.

[Dareos]

It depends on what they plan to do with this tbh. I for one would be happy to pay a yearly fee or a subscription of some sort in order to see old BBC content. I do mean old content tho, not the stuff thats been shown this year or last.

To mind comes

Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Auf Wiedersen Pet (sp), Boys From The Black Stuff, Only Fools and Horses, Doctor Who etc etc etc

Programmes that dont come on Gold (i know Only Fools saturates it) and arent freely available. Discontinued classics from yesteryear that there is no room for on current schedules.

eg : Kids TV was sooo much better when I was a kid, this is a FACT! kids TV today is rubbish, nothing to do with the fact im older or anything, but wouldnt it be great to treat your kids to Glen Michaels Cavalcade (might be scotland only) or Rolf Harris Cartoon Time or Jossy's Giants or Round The Twist. (or Muffin the Mule or Bill and Ben if yer really old )

If it really was all BBC content, then great, if its a select stuff that you can see on other channels or was on recently, not interested.

It would also have to be competitively priced, If I can get Netflix or Lovefilm for a fiver a month, I dont expect to pay more than £2 for old BBC content.

[IronWarrior]

...they'd be on certain websites for free within minutes?

They already are and from what I see, faster then the iPlayer itself.

[Singh400]

To be fair, it's not like the iPlayer is free to run - I'm sure it runs up a lot of bandwidth, which has to be paid for. But Would allowing access to "archived" content really increase the bandwidth in use at any given time? Surely the older content won't be anywhere near as popular as the catch-up content.

I'm all for charging international visitors to watch the content, but I don't see why we should be charged when really all it'll take is a few extra hard disks to store the content (which it probably already is on).

To be fair, we pay a god damn licence fee already.

[NightshadowUK]

Paying for the infrastructure? but isnt that a bit invalid as companies like sky and virgin provide their own transmission methods and yet dont get this "license fee".

Virgin and Sky are funded by subscription charges, the BBC obviously doesn't have that form of income.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/ins...re/licencefee/

£145.50 looks a lot until you break it down.

[Hicks12]

Yes they are funded by subscription charges but looking at it as this:

You pay for sky/virgin and you still HAVE to pay a license fee even if you dont watch any BBC channels... see?

If you could pay for subscriptions without bbc it would be nice . And with the fees broken down, it just shows how poor value for money i personally am getting... £8 per month for tv channels when i only watch about 5 programs from bbc1 ! Oh and ofc the news .

£2.11 for radio channels, all i listen to in terms of radio is Heart... lol !
£0.66 for online services i think this is a key value one, use bbc news and bbciplayer every week after work (i finish work after the few programs i watch).
£1.40 on other things, investment in digital broadcast? i get it via cable... dont use any freeview boxes etc.

[aidanjt]

£145.50 looks a lot until you break it down.

Until you multiply it by 24,963,799, then it looks a lot, again.