... the windmills of their minds [actually the Graun's BBC Report]

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

If you want to talk with others about The Great British Bake Off or the Archers, Twitter is already established as the place to do it, or live blogs. Indeed, earlier online communities – such as the Radio 3 and Archers message boards, whose users were often deeply critical of BBC policy – were closed down by the BBC, with specific suggestions from administrators that the discussion should migrate to Twitter and Facebook. But the BBC is now in a different mood, ready to open a channel for direct communication with audiences and to reduce the importance of the mediation of the public’s responses.

Graun

should we take encouragement from this?

good series of articles btw

[french frank]

And:

‘Minorities are very important sections of the community’

Third, Reith was convinced that broadcasting, with this peculiar capability of reaching everyone, should also provide for everyone. Using the privilege brought by the income from the licence fee, it should serve the thinly scattered few as well as the many. “With us, ‘minorities’ are very important sections of the community, and a ‘limited appeal’ may still involve many hundreds of thousands,” he wrote.

[aeolium]

An interesting article.

According to [BBC director of future media] Rivera, “Fragmentation is our friend, because we are the signal in the noise. The more that’s out there, the more that there is a need to go to places you trust that have high quality. And I believe when you have more choice there’ll be more flight to quality, because you don’t have to accept mediocre or poor things.”

But that is based on the assumption that what the BBC provides is of high quality and that it does cater for minority audiences as well as larger ones. Some here would dispute that (or at least feel that there has been less of that kind of provision in recent years).

I agree with Hall's stated objective in increasing the "curator" role of the BBC, so that the institution can act as a medium for the provision of content actually created by other organisations. To some extent it has been doing that for many years with its outside broadcasts from concert halls and opera houses, and to extend this to theatres is a natural development. But perhaps the BBC has already missed the boat here. Arts organisations are finding ways to provide their content direct to wider audiences without intermediaries (e.g. the BPO's Digital Concert Hall and live broadcasts to cinema) and as the technology improves for doing this will there be room for the BBC? I hope so, for live drama, opera and concerts should be at the heart of the BBC's arts provision.