[Wylug-discuss] BBC overseas re-sale markets (was Yet another advocacy option: e-petitions)

[Dave Fisher]

On Thu, Feb 01, 2007 at 12:48:15PM +0000, Smylers wrote:
> Also in the BBC's defence of thinking that it wants DRM, I believe it
> BBC makes a fair chunk of money from selling programmes abroad.  If Dr
> Who episodes, say, are freeling available for all Brits to download and
> copy wherever they want, then it's likely that people in other countries
> will get these passed on to them, thus reducing the price networks in
> other countries are willing to pay for the series -- which, ultimately,
> the BBC could argue would result in less money being available to make
> programmes for Brits to watch.
> 
> (Note I'm not saying that I subscribe to this point of view, or that I
> agree that DRM will prevent programmes from being pirated, merely that I
> can see why the BBC could rationally think this.)

It's definitely a rationale perspective, and one that the BBC should
consider, but I'm not sure that (in this regard) their position is
fundamentally different from that of a sector-dominating private
corporation, e.g. News Corp.

Many businesses find themselves acting as both suppliers to and buyers
from competing companies, often exchanging identical products/services
with one another. 

Moreover it's commercially commonplace for such a company to find itself
promoting new cheaper (even free) products that destroy the market for
what was previously its cash cow.  Even Microsoft have been known to
do so.

It's just as much in the nature of markets to destroy their own
foundations as it is for them to distribute goods and services
efficiently ... indeed the former is a direct effect of the competitive
struggle to increase productive and distributive efficiency.

The whole point about having public services, is that there are many
'public goods' (e.g. social and material infrastructures) that
individual competitors in a market have little or no commercial
incentive to deliver properly.  

Few doubt that the BBC's missions to inform and educate fall into this
category. Nor should they, in my view, doubt that its mission to
entertain should fall into the same category, i.e. because the BBC
delivers types and qualities of entertainment that TV and Radio markets
elsewhere in the world have signally failed to deliver.

In short, the BBC may need to canibalise its re-sale markets in order to
safeguard the future of its core business: delivering decent content to
UK licence payers.

Dave