A marriage between the BBC and the Guardian?

My thanks go to Dennis Howlett, who posted some opinions today that I wanted to republish. Dennis states his case on the BBC.co.uk relaunch debate:

"There is a much deeper agenda here. The BBC has been told to get its act together to survive and grow in a world where its license fee is under threat.

"The BBC has probably the richest source of media assets anywhere on the planet. Anyone want to put a price on it? Try this - Time Warner is worth $78 billion - what say you for the BBC? $200 billion? It already syndicates large chunks of its drama series material to a number of Sky channels. There is every reason to think that government could create an environment that fully commercialises the BBC without necessarily becoming another ads based channel.

"If that happens then what odds am I offered for a marriage between the BBC and the Guardian?

"That's why this is such a big deal."

Comments

[Nick]

I don't understand Dennis' comments.

Why should this lead to the commercialisation of the BBC?

[David Phillips]

Most of this 'value' is intangible. Most of these intangible values are delivered because of the BBC's relationships with a wide range of publics. Should this relationship management activity be allocated as investments? If so how much of the relationship management cost should move from P&L to the ballance sheet.
If there is a practice of public relations called 'relationship management' is it an investment or a cost.

[Dennis Howlett]

If the licence fee goes, where does it get the bulk of its income? It would be crazy not to capitalise on the wealth in its growing digital vault. Especially in the political and economic climate of the moment.

Given that its crown jewels have not been monetised, that's one heck of a vault. The annuity value alone of syndicating content globaly is staggering. Think of the Fools and Horses re-runs on the Sky channels. Do you think Sky gets that for free?

What about its audio assets. At the very least don't you think they'll want to monetize things like John Peel studio sessions to die hard rock and punk fans?

What about the value to social historians of series like the Archers? It already has an extensive fanzine but folk like Peggie Archer are institutions among large swathes of the grey pound market. It's also an integral part of our recent cultural history from a sociological perspective. Imagine mashing snippets from the entire Archers archive and mashing it up with interviews from the cast. What about including searchable listener reaction to key events over the history of the series. Make that searchable. Make it freely available to academics who develop an authoritative wiki that in turn is a live resource, but moderated academically so that it retains its value.

Now does it make sense?

[Dennis Howlett]

To David's point - The BBC is already monetizing to a limited extent. The Ricky Gervais thing by The Guardian demonstrated the monetization potential for podcast distribution by morphed old style media.

This is not an ads play necessarily but a way of working the Web 2.0 metaphor into helping to preserve its future. The institute that is Auntie to 60 million people and countless others around the world is not going to sacrifice its cultural status as part of a cultural shift.

That would be like shooting the Queens corgies as a cost cutting exercise. We may not be too fond of the old girl these days but we draw the line at killing off the things we do like about her.

I am proposing ways in which that transition could be achieved such that it satisfies every stakeholder.

I am therefore theorizing scenarios based on an as yet unconnected yet available set of facts that I am locating within the context of the BBCs Web 2.0 style technology play.

It doesn't have to be right or wrong but I believe that as a stakeholder in the BBC (they get my attention give me mine) that I have a right to raise the question.