BBC’s Arrogant Response to iPlayer/ISP Outrage
By DavidReece • Apr 3rd, 2008 • Category: OpinionNot content with relying on government backed extortion in the form of TV-Licences to fund their corporation, the BBC is now eating away at your broadband speed with their latest weapon, the iPlayer.
ISP’s in the UK are unhappy with the 20% rise in streaming costs caused by the bandwidth-hungry iPlayer, and are having to absorb the extra costs themselves, which according to OFCOM’s Market Impact Assessment, are set to rise a staggering £831 million from the PSP version of the iPlayer alone. This cost will naturally filter down to the consumer, who will face inevitable price rises from all major internet providers in the UK.
The BBC’s response was two-fold, first offering ‘advice’ to ISP’s on how to run their business, and just to rub salt in the wound, offered similarly insulting advice to internet users and content providers, on how to use the internet. One user commented..
“..The BBC’s arrogance is amazing. You get around £3.5 billion a year stuff ISP’s with p2p rubbish in your iplayer so it’s constantly uploading on they’re[sic] network and then start complaining. The sooner the BBC TV Licence is scrapped the better!”
Which pretty much reflects the sentiments in most of the comments on the BBC’s article. It’s not so much that the iPlayer is a high-bandwidth service, it’s that users aren’t being warned of the penalties imposed by ISP’s for exceeding their monthly allowance, which is almost an inevitability when streaming iPlayer content, and furthermore, the BBC thinking it makes the slightest difference that they offer both streaming and download versions is completely laughable.
Ashley Highfield, the arrogant, ill-informed BBC spokesman, and author of this piece of trash needs an education in how the internet works before he offers advice to others, particularly when his audience knows more than he does.
The BBC has for too long been a chain around Britain’s neck, and the rise of the internet has threatened their extortion racket with online services like Youtube, and their desperate attempt to re-capture their fleeing market has left both users and ISP’s outraged. Not a great start for a corporation that wouldn’t even have survived without enforcing licence fees on little old ladies in the pre-internet era.
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“Ashley Highfield, the arrogant, ill-informed BBC spokesman”
He’s not a spokesman. Look again at his title. It’s there on the blog. Fact-checking is always smart, especially if it’s easy.
“, and author of this piece of trash needs an education in how the internet works before he offers advice to others, particularly when his audience knows more than he does.”
Hmm.. he’s in the high-powered BBC job. You *sure* he doesn’t know how teh interwebs work? And that (all) his audience does?
“The BBC has for too long been a chain around Britain’s neck, and the rise of the internet has threatened their extortion racket with online services like Youtube”
A chain unlike ITV, which has given us glittering riches like.. um… Celebrity Love Island?
Anyhow… Doctor Who, anyone? Last Enemy? Edge of Darkness? Teletubbies? (Commissioned by the BBC, but independently produced. How does independent production for the BBC fit into your rant?)
“, and their desperate attempt to re-capture their fleeing market has left both users and ISP’s outraged.”
Show me some outraged users? Apart from yourself, obviously. I thought you were arguing that iPlayer is *too* popular. That doesn’t imply outraged users - that implies happy users. Annoyed ISPs, perhaps.
” Not a great start for a corporation that wouldn’t even have survived without enforcing licence fees on little old ladies in the pre-internet era.”
Indeed, though little old ladies get a discount, and rich young men with pricey computers get to pay the full whack, which actually they don’t have to pay if they eschew a TV and just watch it online. Oh, no, hang on, they don’t - they’re too busy being OUTRAGED.
Do I sense a posting vendetta from a certain tech editor? That phorm article really hit a nerve didn’t it. I’m glad you’re enjoying the ‘Opinion’ section of this site.
No, I just happen to be on the site, and was wondering if your errors on the Phorm story were a one-off. Readers can draw their own conclusions.
New title: I’m watching the BBC. Who are you watching?
I’m with Charles on this one, David. Lay off Auntie, we pay a reasonable flat rate for it because it is ours, and their ain’t much of that kind of thing left. The main problem with internet bandwidth is us being miss-sold (spelling, anyone?) ‘unlimited’ usage. We pay for our connection to the Internet, and so do the content providers (fancy people actually using the networks, eh?) - I’ve been led to believe that it’s the wholesale deals betwixt ISPs that is where the problem really lies.
Sorry, please make that “and there ain’t much of that kind of thing left.” in last post.
@AdeW - fair enough, there are BBC supporters and non-supporters out there. I’ve always been a little anti-bbc myself due to the way they enforce the licence fee. I won’t deny my bias on this one, which is why I stuck it in ‘Opinion’.
I have to hand it to the BBC though - They’ve always been extremely polite in their emails, and I was surprised that they linked to this article from their site, making them (at least on a one-to-one basis) hard to dislike. I just can’t get over my opposition to them as a corporation though, and you have to admit - their response to this issue was ill-thought out and arrogant.
Ashley Highfield is leaving the BBC after heading up the iPlayer. Maybe his article was “parting advice”, but it seemed to rub a lot of people the wrong way.
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Up to £107,000 pay increases for executives? Not so sure how I feel now.