Mike Pearson reporting on Another way to look at BBC and Youview

I can understand why Sky and Virgin are worried, why the press is reporting campaigns by the satellite and cable companies to muzzle the BBC. Why we see ever more lavish Sky and Virgin adverts and why Sky have begun to expand their offer to proper broadcasting rather than a simply program content. It is about Youview and the massive domination I predict it will give the BBC.

So here is ‘Another Way to Look at the BBC’.

A series of technological advances are converging to produce fresh opportunities and define new markets. The first is the roll out of fibre optic by BT. BT languished in a weak position for years whilst Virgin and Sky forged ahead with comprehensive broadband TV and phone packages. But the roll out of BT Infinity will deliver a step change in download speeds to a huge swathe of the domestic market, making movie downloads simple and reliable via fibre optic to the exchange and copper to your home. But it also makes it possible to deliver a great deal more content than that. Many people have stuck with BT, mainly through ‘devil you know’ inertia and now that decision (or lack of one) is coming good.

The second technological step is the switch over to digital TV. Begun in the West, now Cornwall and Devon are fully switched over. If the pattern there is replicated await local news stories in your egion about the mountains of cathode ray TVs being dumped as people upgrade to flat screen TVs with Freeview built in. The market for digital content is here, now, and growing fast.

How this plays into the BBC’s hands is down to Youview. Begun as project Canvas it entails a set top box able to deliver rich content via the TV. Now remind me what UK coverage does broadband have? Ah yes maybe 70-80% of the population. How about mobiles? We own two handsets per person apparently, but add up those with smart phones and we are still in the 70-80% coverage at best. But TVs; 99% coverage is calculated. And those still firmly attached to the TV are the elderly, a demographic that web or mobile content providers can only dream about.

But there is another revolution. Gesture based input. From the days when the QWERTY was laid out to deliberately slow typing the keypad has dominated as input device. But gesture driven input is emerging through gaming and I have witnessed thought driven typing (albeit slow and requiring training) via a headset. So for an elderly generation unwilling to learn the nuances of a mouse, or the idiocies of html, css and php on web pages an entirely new way of interacting with a computer can be combined with a recognised and trusted interface, the TV.

So we see how these few convergences will combine to create a huge new opportunity to access untapped markets for the BBC to deliver rich content via their own set top box (in manufacture now) to users on their trusted TV interface with maybe a wristband or finger stall used to point to a large keypad and gestures to navigate. It seems the generation that missed out on the desktop PC will have the last laugh.

But does the BBC need to redirect those users to Google, Facebook and Youtube? Not if they can be replicated in the BBC cloud. What is the BBC if not one of the most iconic and trusted global brands. If you worry about cyber theft or bias who better to trust than the BBC? Why go elsewhere if you can get current broadcast content, news, weather, travel, a huge back catalogue of royalty paid movies and a raft of other service such as a health portal via your BBC set top box at fibre optic speeds?

I think this will be a huge revolution that could place the BBC as a major player on the world stage of content delivery. The challenge therefore seems to be for our government. On one hand we have the huge sway Murdoch holds on any government, versus the huge financial potential from growing the publically owned BBC brand into a vast global money generating machine. If you want my view you should back the BBC Mr Cameron, it is going to be huge.

This was Mike Pearson showing Another Way to look at the BBC.