Out With A Bang

We’ve kind of touched on this before; or rather Ms Kiss did… that in amidst all the hand-wringing and quizzical ‘Er, what next…?’ looks that accompanied Lord Carter’s first stab at a vision for ‘Digital Britain’, there was barely a mention for anyone on the independent start-up scene.

Us VIPs, weren’t even a blip on their radar.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=235

This was Jemima’s big line…

‘The report seemed fixed on pushing traditional media companies to transform for this demand.

‘The future for the BBC, for Channel 4, for local newspapers and for radio – the report is focused on helping these behemoths plan for the future, yet it has been new, agile, inventive startups and technology firms that have started to build the future so far…’

Read the letter that is now about to be despatched from Whitehall inviting those with an interest in the future of PSB in for coffee and consultation and it is clear that the same, deeply flawed thinking still pervades the corridors of power.

That ‘big’ government appears convinced that only ‘big’ media has the answer to their PSB needs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/17/public-service-broadcasting-government-letter

Or, more particularly…

http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/openletter.pdf

And this is the killer line… ‘Government believes that, in order to have the potential to play a credible role, an interested organisation should be of a sufficient size to invest either capital or assets at a significant level, and have a proven track record and profile in content production or broadcasting on an international scale…

And that would be, er, who… exactly?

Big media is in big, big trouble… as the very same letter concedes. “As we move into the digital age the business models of our existing advertising funding public service broadcasters and their ability to fulfil their public purposes face increasing pressure…

Which is why ITV is trying to run as far and as fast away from its own PSB requirements as it can; you suspect that they have neither the time, the inclination or the cash to re-think the public’s media needs.

And that’s the fundamental issue, here. One that ‘big’ government appears incapable of actually grasping.

What is the public’s media needs? Forgetting access to decent children’s TV, for a minute.

The news that matters to most of the public most of the time is the news from their kids’ school playground; the news from the streets around their home; events on their block, in their postcode – that’s the news that impacts on their daily lives.

Small news. Hyper-small news. In every likelihood hyper-small news provided by hyper-small community news platforms.

Big news the BBC can do. Or The Guardian. Or The Telegraph.

And this is the message that no-one appears to be capable of taking on board.

The forest fire of our worst imaginings rages with the greatest ferocity amidst those that are neither hyper-local nor pan-global. The Guardian’s salvation will – eventually – come from the fact that it has millions of uniques in the United States and beyond.

It is an option not open to the Birmingham Mail; to Trinity Mirror; to Johnston Press. Or, indeed, ITV’s regional news output.

And the more they retreat away from the playground gates, the parish council meetings and the stuff of the parish newsletter, so the provincial newspapers can’t do hyper-small. Channel Four News have never been there; the BBC tried and failed… the Trust wobbled in the face of the Newspaper Society’s onslaught.

And yet, according to government, the only people it is worth talking to on this subject are those that have ‘a proven traken record…’ in content production and broadcasting ‘on an international scale…’

Who, clearly, can then turn that global repute into something that matters to the mums and dads that stand outside Loddon Junior School gates at 3.30pm every afternoon.

Hello? We’re all broadcasters now; we all own a mobile phone.

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=143

Go and dust off Anthony Lilley’s report; for me, it should be a cornerstone of anyone’s policy thinking… that the world belongs to small media, individual media… to me and my community.

“The availability of low cost digital production and post-production technologies is driving an unprecedented surge in creation, modification and remixing of content by the people formerly known as the audience…”, wrote Mr Magic Lantern, still a star in my book.

‘Low cost digital production…’ That’s a mobile phone.

‘Post-production technologies…’ That’s YouTube.

‘By the people formerly known as the audience…’ That’s backpackdave08, that’s me and my mobile phone [my AudioBoo enabled Apple iPhone, to be correct... ] at the school play; the Xmas carol concert.

The one word that really grates in that open letter from Government is ‘credible’.

That the only people with a ‘credible’ answer to the Government’s PSB conundrum are those that have a proven track record of delivering content on an international scale…

What b*llocks.

Only two types of media have any hope of surviving. Pan-global or hyper-local.

And the answer to hyper-local won’t come from above; it will come from kitchen tables; from the grass-roots up. It will come from local writers empowered with both the tools and the organisational elegance to deliver the kinds of news that matters to the mums and dads on the playground.

And me, Matt, Mark and all our other little VIP Club pals believe we can do that.

You want a consulation document? There you go…

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=233

Or are we not ‘credible’ enough to be listened to?