Today Sydney Morning Herald –
The BBC, which receives about 3 billion pounds ($7.19 billion) a year in public funding, has announced plans to relaunch its Web site to incorporate more user-generated content such as blogs and video, as well as developing new broadband portals in areas including sports, music, health and science.
James MacManus, an executive director of Murdoch’s News International company, accused the state-funded BBC of “blatantly commercial ambitions” and seeking “to create a digital empire.”
“Our view is that can only damage the development of commercial digital media,” MacManus said.
“This is being done with public money,” he told The Associated Press. “It really is outrageous.”
The BBC says it hopes its new site will attract unsigned bands hoping to showcase their music – one of the key successes of MySpace.com, the social networking site recently bought by Murdoch.
“We have one of the best Web sites in the world, but it’s rooted in the first digital wave,” BBC director-general Mark Thompson told staff on Tuesday. “We need to reinvent it, fill it with dynamic audiovisual content, personalise it, open it up to user-friendly material.” (emphasis mine)
He said in the new world of “BBC Web 2.0,” audiences would become “participants and partners.”
Rival broadcasters have long complained that the BBC uses public money to fund types of programs supplied by commercial operators, abandoning a public service remit in a chase for viewers.
One reply on “BBC 2.0 vs Fox’s MySpace”
The BBC became the world’s best media producer by leading the way. Rupert Murdoch would prefer it lived in the past and fosilised by ignoring new developments in the media world. Instead, the BBC sets the standard for the rest of the world. Something the sprawling Sky/Fox networks seem to have failed to do.