“The group said that it would also raise the issues with the the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and MPs on the Media Select Committee,” The Beeb reports. “The BBC has said it plans to launch its first news app on the iPhone in April, followed by one for its sport content.”
“‘Not for the first time, the BBC is preparing to muscle into a nascent market and trample over the aspirations of commercial news providers,’ said David Newell, director of the NPA,” The Beeb reports. “He said that the market for iPhone news apps was “a unique and narrow commercial space” that would be ‘distorted’ by the BBC apps. ‘This is not, as the BBC argues, an extension of its existing online service, but an intrusion into a very tightly defined, separate market.'”
“The BBC Trust, the body that regulates the BBC, said that the proposals to build the apps had not been referred to it for approval but it had been made aware of the plans,” The Beeb reports. “‘The BBC Executive has advised the Trust that it is satisfied that these plans to deliver BBC News, Sport and iPlayer content via smartphone apps fall within the terms of its existing BBC service licence and that the plans do not constitute a significant change to the service.’ A spokesperson for the BBC said that its online service licence, granted by the BBC Trust, was ‘quite explicit in allowing the BBC to repurpose its online content for consumption on mobile devices.'”
The Beeb reports, “But Mr Newell said the development of apps ‘for a niche market does not sit comfortably with the BBC’s mission to broadcast its content to a wide, general audience. We strongly urge the BBC Trust to block these damaging plans, which threaten to strangle an important new market for news and information.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Not confident that you can compete and with nothing actionable to litigate? Bitch, whine, and moan.