In a case of any-enemy-of-yours-must-be-a-friend-of-mine, the Guardian PDA blog invites sworn enemy Edward Roussel, head of Telegraph digital, to comment on their mutual bete noir, the BBC, and a report of tremendous overspending on its digital efforts. Emily Bell, head of digital at the Guardian, and Jemima Kiss, doyenne of tech and media bloggers there, weigh in. So did I:
I know this is naive (and American) of me but I wonder about turning the discussion around and asking what the BBC can do as a platform to support diverse voices not controlled there, including those of the Telegraph, Guardian, Times, et al, not to mention bloggers and media and information entrepreneurs.
For example, shouldn’t you all be demanding access to the iPlayer?
Shouldn’t you demand access to any and all code created with license fees?
Shouldn’t the BBC make it part of its mission to support diverse and quality voices throughout media — again, commercial newspapers, blogs, podcasts, anything — with promotion, traffic, technology innovation, open-source invention (and even, as I suggested at the Online Publishers Association panel I moderated with the Guardian, the BBC, and Reuters, the BBC taking on ad sales of UK sites’ international traffic as it begins to sell ads internationally).
What if the BBC became an open network? What if you could build upon it the way many have built businesses atop Google?
I know that Ofcom (with Tom Loosemore) have been grappling with the question of what public-service publishing/broadcasting/internetting means. But how about this:
What if the BBC were to become the public-service platform?
