“The Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA) complained last month that the corporations plans for mobile apps would skew the market and amount to the BBC entering a new medium,” T3 reports. “BBC management insist the apps are just a new way of delivering existing the organisation’s existing internet offering rather than moving into a new media space.”
T3 reports, “The BBC News app for the iPhone was due next month and a sports iPhone app in May. The BBC Trust, which regulates the corporation, has now told BBC management to put its plans on hold while it investigates the newspaper industry’s complaints.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “TheMightyFinder” for the heads up.]
Afraid of competition so they try and shut it down.
Disgusting.
Let the consumer decide what to read!
Wow, that pisses me off.
@Fredo. Agreed.
I don’t understand this.
Spent 10 years living in the north of England, not surprised at this. A typical Union move (MW) indeed and no one wins!
It’s not about news or freedom of choice, fredo.
It’s about turf.
err “motion pictures” on a print site is more like “newspapers” invading other territories.
Ahh the power of old media—its not dead it just smells funny! (thanks Frank Z)
@TheloniousMac: The reasoning behind the decision and the NPA’s greed, or the whole situation? Because if it’s the former, nor do I.
Smells like unions yet again slowing down progress no matter how minor the advancement. WHo complained? The consumer?….doubt that. Some union jerk-offs figuring out how to keep relevant and consequently, how to keep their job.
It confuses my monkey brain.
This article is virtually incomprehensible!
Agreed,
It’s also unintelligible, impossible to understand, impenetrable, unclear, indecipherable, inscrutable, beyond one’s comprehension, beyond one, beyond one’s grasp, complicated, complex, involved, baffling, bewildering, mystifying, unfathomable, puzzling, cryptic, confusing, perplexing; abstruse, esoteric, recondite, arcane, mysterious.
I love Dictionary.
Unions are Tards
I believe the BBC is government subsidized, giving it unfair advantage over private companies vying for the same advertising revenue. That is the reason for the objection.
Nothing to do with unions guys. This is the management of print newspapers complaining that the BBC has an ‘unfair’ advantage. The BBC is not funded by the taxpayer, it’s funded by the licence payer (anyone with a tv must pay the licence fee). It’s true that there is a danger of the BBC muscling in on a market that is already populated by commercial companies and there probably ought to be a limit to that. But why that should stop the BBC providing an iPhone app to deliver some of its content beats me. I’d like to be able to have that choice and I’m more likely to have multiple news apps from different sources. Of course what the newspaper companies want is to sell their apps and sell their content. That’s what this is really about.
The problem here is the BBC Trust which is, to my recollection, a body made up of various members of the public to make sure that the BBC is run in a responsible manner both financially and with regard to programme content.
The problem in England is that whenever one of these so called independent trusts is set up they DO NOT consist of the average man in the street but instead consist of people who already have a highly paid job in other forms of employment.
I do not know who the members of the BBC Trust are but wouldn’t be surprised if some of them had ties with the newspapers or had friends on those newsspapers who were calling in a favour or two with regard to the situation.
Either way it’s dirty tactics and I for one hope the Beeb get their way and release both apps.
After all isn’t that what I pay my licence fee for in the uk, for the products that the BBC can give me, not what some faceless trust decides is good for me.
We have never liked paying the licence fee in the uk but damnation if we have no choice in paying it we alone as the customer should have the right to decide what we wish to download and I want both of these apps!
newspapers don’t OWN the app market. Wake up BBC Trust!
The BBC is funded outside general taxation by a licence fee for those who own a TV in the house ( approximately everyone).
The issue is should the print media moguls – and the politicians who appoint the worthies that make up the trustees of the BBC – conspire to force the public to pay for a service that they already get as a part of the current license fee.
Any poll of the public would want the BBC website to contine and to have access from mobile devices – which are the future – and far more important than crap ideas like digital radio switch-over.
Bottom line, we currently pay for news via the licence fee – why should we be forced to line Rupert Murdoch’s pockets ? All disguised as ;a competition argument’.
Socialism in action.
Simon. Get real! I had an acquaintance who worked (????), one night a week at ‘The News of the World’ on Fleet St. London and was paid a full week’s wages. Unions will be the death of the USA.
It only takes a minute to find this stuff out …
Try edumacting yourselves.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/index.shtml
You people are so ill-informed, it’s unbelievable.
The unions were pretty much broken out of what used to be Fleet St. during the 1980s initially by Eddy Shah’s Today title (which was modelled after USA Today) which was set up as a non-union shop from the get-go and then by Murdoch’s News International when it moved to Wapping (geographically) and the 20th Century (technologically).
This is the large print media owners (the afore-mentioned News International, but also Trinity Mirror, Archant, Guardian Media Group), some of whom have multiple axes to grind as they also own TV (e.g. Sky, through News International) and radio (e.g. GMG).
Many of these owners have a real bug up their asses regarding the BBC: they despise the quality of the BBC, they’re envious of its unbiased criticism of both right and left (the BBC was hated by the Thatcher, Major and Blair administrations and is probably only tolerated by the Brown regime) and – most of all – they envy the BBC’s funding mechanism.
Non-BBC types may whinge about the license fee, but – per hour of broadcast content across TV and both national and local radio – the BBC is amazing value for money.
Unions? What? You conservative union buster types are making about as much sense here as if I tried to hijack this thread to talk about the danger of global warming.
(And believe me, I have to hold myself back every time).
As a few of the smarter commenters have noted this is about Management types like your buddy Rupert Murdoch trying to use corrupt political connections to steamroll consumer choice and line their own pockets.
What I admire most about right-wing propagnada is that it somehow convinces people to believe in and vote against their own self interests. And it’s always in favor of the very richest among us. Here we have the usual anti-Union claptrap about how Unions do everything they can to thwart competition, end innovation and basically try to wrangle undeserved wages from the poor, poor owners.
Yet it’s these same CEO and Boards who get those multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses. It amazes me that some guy earning less than $40k/yr is screaming until he’s red in the face against Unions, who are the very people fighting for his best interests.
But Unions are bad, you say. Yeah, those billionaires need more profits. They can’t possibly be satisfied with anything less than… all of it. Unions Bad! Rich old white men Good! Down with any protection of the middle class! More wealthcare for millionaires!
What I can’t understand is who would want their news filtered through the BBC in the first place?
With a nod to GM’s Advertising Division, “This is not your Grandfather’s BBC”.
Smells like unions …
I don’t understand this …
Socialism in action …
Idiots.
Then there is ron, the fascist jackass.
The fact that Simon is right is not relevant to ron! You not impinge on rons sacred memories, his cherishes his dystopian days in the motherland.
Unions? In the UK? LOL. Have you lot not heard of Margaret Thatcher?
@Montex
Bravo! Encore! Encore!
@Montex
spot on.
@MCCFR, the question, I guess, is why should my television licence pay for the development of iPhone apps?
More to the point, why should a newspaper (or magazine, or another broadcaster) have to compete with iPhone apps which are subsidized by all of our “television” licences.
Unions? In the UK? LOL. BA cabin staff currently on strike. Railway unions striking over easter weekends. Civil servants strikes last week, more to come … and prolly teachers, healthcare, and all state employees to do the same soon.
It’s like the 1970s all over again, the days before Margaret Thatcher.
“why should a newspaper (or magazine, or another broadcaster) have to compete”
Why shouldn’t they have to compete? Get better then you will win!
MCCFR is right, BBC is a good benchmark … and if these private companies cannot compete with the state sponsored organisation (and we all know how inefficient they are) then surely they need to get less rubbish and start offering something good instead of moaning and complaining about “unfair”.
The NPA sound like socialists rather than businesses.
@quality, WTF?
Compete? Sure, they should compete. My point is that a TELEVISION subsidy is being inappropriately diverted to support other media (iPHONE APPS). Cutting off the last half of my sentence hardly strengthens your argument.
@ montex But then thats it isn’t it? Sometimes it’s best to think of the interests of the community instead of just “SELF INTEREST”. JFK said it best .. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do or your country”. Self interest be damned! Self interest is very much akin to greed, and, like greed, is leading this once oasis of a country down the same drain that Europe & all other like minded communities are circling… all because of self interest, just look at the recently passed healthcare bill, its all about self interest, even though its the worst possible solution for the USA today. So yes, I understand, Greed & Self Interest are both alive and well, but just maybe we should give a little more thought to the good of the community, and just once forego “Self Interest”.
@disposableidentity
Yes, guess I missed your point with selective editing; although it’s kind of a BBC receiving licence isn’t it, the television license also includes radio license (although you haven’t been able to get that separately since 1969 so the interwebz tells me). Anyway, I have no problem with them creating an iPhone App; must have a billionth of the budget of many of their other activities.
I just get annoyed with complaints and moans from Murdoch camp killing of things in the public interest, in the name of “fair”, such as Project Kangaroo — all UK television broadcasters on iPlayer, scuppered because News Corp want to bring Hulu to UK. Although we still have Project Canvas, which is in effect iPlayer for all UK broadcasters on Freeview and Freesat set-top-boxes; News Corp hate this too, and don’t want to put their channels on it.
Totally agree. With the iPhone & iPad the newspapers and other broadcasters have a brilliant opportunity to win it all back, if they get their asses in gear.
Generally I think it’s a good thing to unlock all that BBC content with an iPhone app. Apps are a strange crossover of media (gray area).
It’s just that if you have to buy a TV license in the UK, you’d hope it was being spent on TV, and not on other media. I think it would be hard for anyone to compete with a publicly-funded competitor.
CBC (in Canada), and PBS are funded from general revenue (and other sources), so their apps are fair.