BBC Archive Download project

[aeolium]

This looks like a promising next step on the road towards opening up the BBC archive. I am much more interested in the radio archive than in anything on TV, and the article seems mainly to be referring to TV programmes, but at least it establishes the principle of enabling archive downloads which would be far easier to manage with audio files than video ones (at least for the majority with slow broadband). Presumably the difficult copyright issues have been resolved for this project to be considered.

[french frank]

Yes, I saw this but lost interest when it appeared only to be covering television programmes. As you say, though, radio may be following and Radio 3 will surely have some treasures.

[JFLL]

Perhaps one should wait and see what happens, but the wording "proposals allowing viewers to permanently download copies of their favourite shows from the archives' strikes me as rather ominous. I for one don't really want things like 'Dad's Army' and 'Fawlty Towers' which are anyway repeated ad nauseam and available on DVD, but programmes such as Alec Clifton-Taylor's three series on English Towns in the 70s and 80s, which seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth and have never been transferred to DVD. The trouble with Clifton-Taylor, in the minds of the populists, is that he 'talked posh', (so 'stuffy', 'inaccessible' ..... fill in your own adjective), and they're unlikely to be repeated even on BBC4. I doubt. too. whether the programmes would come into the category of 'favourite shows'.

[mercia]

Alec Clifton-Taylor's three series on English Towns in the 70s and 80s

they were marvellous weren't they
and in turn that's reminded me of W G Hoskins's series The Landscape of England

[Russ]

I understand the scheme will encompass radio. A few weeks ago, Tim Davie hinted that some of it might be free, but he thought it likely the BBC "would want to monetise archive radio drama".

Russ

[aeolium]

Only Tim Davie could use a word like 'monetise' about the BBC's radio drama archive

[Globaltruth]

they were marvellous weren't they
and in turn that's reminded me of W G Hoskins's series The Landscape of England

Well, whatever happens, these posts were welcome reminders of some great television which changed forever the way I looked at buildings and influenced which houses I bought since then. Thank you.

[JFLL]

I ought to add that the English Towns series are almost all available on Y** T*be, if you don't mind watching them in ten-minute chunks in sometimes dodgy transfers. But the appreciative messages there show that they deserve better than this.

[Russ]

Good 'ol Youtube (or the hinterlands of file-sharing 'thusiastas for radio), is probably the best you're going to get for a lot of the decent archive stuff. The BBC is planning to sell only its recent (post-digitalisation) programmes wholesale to a commercial 'YouPay' outfit that will be handling it for resale to the general public. YouPay will be as about as opposite to a public service broadcasting ethic as you could imagine, and won't be interested in anything remotely ancient because it won't be commercially attractive to buy it from the BBC. YouPay will want to deal only with 'popular' stuff - fine if you want the 2009 final of Strictly Come Dancing, but if you're in the mood for an obscure b&w arts documentary from 1968, forget it.

In a way, I'm grateful for Tim Davie for having mentioned radio drama, because radio is way way down the agenda for YouPay, and they probably won't know what radio drama is.

Russ

[Globaltruth]

Whilst looking for something else I came across this site and this link, very relevant to this discussion...and not really just to those of us interested in World Music.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/east_african_vinyl_records#incoming-264428

I like the idea of the site which enables info sharing on FoI requests. We can be sure that most of the organisations who receive the requests aren't quite so enamoured...

[Lateralthinking1]

Whilst looking for something else I came across this site and this link, very relevant to this discussion...and not really just to those of us interested in World Music.

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/east_african_vinyl_records#incoming-264428

I like the idea of the site which enables info sharing on FoI requests. We can be sure that most of the organisations who receive the requests aren't quite so enamoured...

And the very best of British with it. Put aside at least a year for it. Do little else. Most organisations are less worried about reputation than many might think, especially if they aren't selling anything. All that matters to them is the potential for lawsuits.

As for the BBC, I had it in my mind wrongly that they weren't subject to FOI. But, in a sense, they still aren't judging by that reply. I have some doubts about how organised their record library is. Do they actually know what they have got and what they haven't?

Mixed feelings on the television archive. If the commercial sector is only interested in the recent, that's fine with me. I'm more concerned about safeguarding quality output. Whether we should have to pay for accessing programmes we have paid for to be made is a moot point. I could only see it as justified, and then only slightly, if that is what it takes to maintain the current service.

[LHC]

As for the BBC, I had it in my mind wrongly that they weren't subject to FOI. But, in a sense, they still aren't judging by that reply. I have some doubts about how organised their record library is. Do they actually know what they have got and what they haven't?

The BBC is only partially subject to the FOI Act. The schedule of Public Authorities appended to the Act lists the BBC "in respect of information held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature".

So you can ask about how much it spends on taxis for its senior staff, but apparently not about its record library (which is I presume held for the purpose of art or literature).

[french frank]

As for the BBC, I had it in my mind wrongly that they weren't subject to FOI. But, in a sense, they still aren't judging by that reply. I have some doubts about how organised their record library is. Do they actually know what they have got and what they haven't?

They are deemed a 'hybrid' organisation and have been granted a derogation which exempts them from disclosing matters relating to 'journalism, art and literature' (which covers most things that anyone would want to know about). They themselves appear to interpret this as allowing them to withhold anything they don't want to reveal.

On the record labels question, they may get out of it because they aren't required to generate information that they don't already 'hold', e.g. which needs special research to put together.

[Lateralthinking1]

LHC and frenchfrank - Thank you for this very helpful clarification.

[Chris Newman]

I found this programme "In Town Tonight" from 1955 by flook. Astonishingly I remembered bits of it from the age of about eight, especially being impressed by Tito Gobbi and Alistair Sim.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00nw1k0/In_Town_Tonight_22_10_1955/