Features

[This is an archived feature from March 2003]

As media organisations struggled to make sense of the terrorist bombings in London on 7th July 2005, and long before TV satellite trucks arrived on the scene, witnesses were busy sharing photos and videos online, as well as chronicling a time-line of the horrific events on their own blogs (web logs).

This was just one of many reminders, as if we needed them, that the world of new media technology has changed, and changed for good.

In fact new media devices are fundamentally altering our society – from the way we work, to the way that we shop and play. If you think the past few years have seen startling change, then the next few are likely to be even more disruptive.

From new media to my media

The obstacles that once stood in between the consumer and the latest gadgets – cost, ignorance, apathy, non-universal access – have been largely overcome by the recent generation of affordable, user friendly devices which have clear benefits over existing ones.

Only a few years ago, new media technologies were viewed with the same suspicion as the telephone was some 80 years ago. Just 10 years ago email and the Internet were the exception, where now they are the rule.

But like the telephone, today’s new gadgets have passed out of the unusual and into the mainstream. The runaway success of Digital Video Recorders (DVRs), MP3 players, tells us that consumers are more than happy to listen to the radio and watch TV at a time of their choosing.

And the seemingly fathomless appetite for camera and video phones, for VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) telephone calls, for wireless technology and for personal web space demonstrates that we’re not afraid to embrace new technology – nor to spend our hard-earned cash on it.

But people have been talking about a new media revolution ever since the arrival of the IBM Home Computer in 1981 – so how do we know that it has arrived? The answer lies in the speed of uptake – for not only are truly interactive, multimedia devices now affordable and readily available, but they are also being snapped up in vast numbers.

Recycle and make a difference!

The haves are now outweighing the have-nots and, like it or not, the media landscape has changed for good. The figures speak for themselves:

• There are now more than 60 million mobile phones in the UK and we spend more on our mobile phone bills than we do on our landlines.

• Today the computer games industry brings in more revenue than total UK cinema ticket sales.

Another happy caller to Access All Areas

• Two thirds of us are connected to the world wide web (half of them via broadband) and the same number have digital TV.

However, the traffic is not all one-way. While the Internet, broadband and digital technology have certainly transformed the way in which media content can be distributed, stored, shared, manipulated and consumed, ‘traditional’ media have thus far continued to dominate.

Television and radio are still the most consumed media. The average person in the UK watches 25 hours of TV per week and listens to about 17 hours of radio. Just because new devices have the potential to transform behaviour - that does not mean they will.

Nevertheless, media consumption habits are changing and there are signs that, driven largely by media-savvy younger generations, the pace of change is about to pick up.

The combination of market penetration, enhanced bandwidth and improved compression technology means that near-broadcast quality video and audio is now available in millions of homes in England. If people aren’t yet connected, the theory goes, then they soon will be.

The BBC in the new media age

What role then for a public service broadcaster in a world of self-scheduled, on-demand, and ‘Wiki’ (a series on-line media archives compiled and edited by everyday web users) media?

For a broadcaster like the BBC, it is a case of catering for the demand for new media technologies and new forms of content delivery or risk losing important chunks of the licence-fee paying audience. That is not to say that the Corporation will stop providing TV and radio programming – far from it – it just means a fresh approach to the delivery of those programmes.

While in recent years the BBC’s website has become one of the largest content-based portals on the planet, some more recent initiatives demonstrate the Beeb’s commitment to responding to changing consumer and market trends:

• Radio Player

Already hugely popular, the BBC’s internet Radio Player makes almost every BBC radio programme available live and on-demand for seven days after broadcast, creating a massive, ever-changing library of music, talk shows, dramas and documentaries.

Recent figures show that more than 10 million hours of BBC radio is consumed online per month. The great thing about Radio Player is that audiences are put in control of their listening, allowing them to listen at convenient times, control their schedules and fast-forward through programmes.

• ‘Mybbcplayer’ or ‘iMP’ (Interactive Media Player)

Currently on public trial, the iMP offers UK viewers the chance to catch up on TV and radio programmes they may have missed for up to seven days after they have been broadcast, using the internet to legally download programmes to their home computers.

A technical trial took place in 2004 with a limited number of participants and a small amount of rights-cleared programmes to test the concept of using peer-to-peer technology and digital rights management (DRM) to protect rights holders.

• The Creative Archive

The BBC Creative Archive, first announced by former BBC Director-General Greg Dyke at the Edinburgh Television Festival in August 2003 will allow people to download clips of BBC factual programmes, keep them on their PCs, manipulate and share them, so making the BBC's archives more accessible to licence fee payers.

You can find out more about any of these projects by going to bbc.co.uk and entering the search term in the space provided.