I wondered how long it would be before print media pointed at the BBC’s new smartphone apps plan as another example of expansion in to their commercial territory. The answer: just 24 hours…
The Newspaper Publishers Association, in an emailed statement, says its members believe BBC apps “will undermine the commercial sector’s ability to establish an economic model in an emerging but potentially important market … This, over the long term, will reduce members’ ability to invest in quality journalism.”
The NPA already looks like a dog with a bone with this – it says it will ask the regulating BBC Trust, before the apps can go live, to submit them to its Public Value Test (PVT) for new services; it will also lobby the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and the House of Commons’ media select committee…
But the BBC tells paidContent:UK the apps don’t need the trust’s clearance, arguing they are not a new service because they merely repackage existing content in a new form, and its trust itself tells me it’s satisfied the plans are within the terms of the Beeb’s online service licence.
NPA’s members are all the big UK publishers – Associated Newspapers, Express Newspapers, Financial Times, Guardian News & Media, Independent Newspapers & Media, MGN, News International and Telegraph Media Group – most of which have launched or are working on their own apps.
It’s the latest chapter in long-running frosty relations. Many of these groups already regard the BBC News website’s popularity as a barrier to them making substantial advertising or paid content income from their own sites. But if they let that genie out of the bottle, when the site launched in 1997, they’re not about to do so with other new initiatives…
In its statement, the NPA says BBC.co.uk is "a key obstacle to the development of sustainable advertising and paid-for models for online content provision". Director David Newell…
“Not for the first time, the BBC is preparing to muscle into a nascent market and trample over the aspirations of commercial news providers.
“At a time when the BBC is facing unprecedented levels of criticism over its expansion, and when the wider industry is investing in new models, it is extremely disappointing that the Corporation plans to launch services that would throw into serious doubt the commercial sector’s ability to make a return on its investment, and therefore its ability to support quality journalism.
“The impact of the BBC’s existing online presence is well known. However, this is a very different and particular case. The market for iPhone news apps is a unique and narrow commercial space, which means that the potential for market distortion by the BBC is much greater. 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 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. In other words, this is not about reach, and we believe the BBC’s efforts – and the considerable investment – would be better directed elsewhere.
“We strongly urge the BBC Trust to block these damaging plans, which threaten to strangle an important new market for news and information.”
The BBC Trust has track-record for blocking new BBC online services after commercial-sector complaints. It previously barred the addition of video bulletins to its BBC Local sites after the newspaper industry, which was investing in online video at the time, got worked up.
The BBC has already had one impact on the commercial mobile apps space – as we’ve reported, it has been sending cease-and-desist orders to third-party app developers who were packaging up publicly-funded BBC content and were selling them for money in Apple’s iTunes Store.
After sitting on the sidelines during the first two years of the mobile apps boom, due to concerns over app stores’ terms, the BBC is planning free BBC News, BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer apps, with more to follow, its online controller told the mobile industry’s annual summit in Barcelona on Wednesday. Seen through BBC goggles, not taking its content on to platforms is to ignore audiences it thinks it risks losing touch with, like young people.
As BBC News multimedia editorial development head Pete Clifton wrote: “Our approach has always been simple: web equals mobile; mobile equals web.”
BBC Trust tells paidContent:UK there was no evidence to suggest a public value test needs to be carried out, but this could change: “The BBC executive has told us the proposal falls within the existing service licence and we’ve not seen anything to suggest otherwise – we’re content on that basis – if we were to receive evidence to the future, that might change.”
A spokesperson said the trust has other tools, beside a public value test, to scrutinise the BBC’s day-to-day functioning. “This smartphone apps announcement has not been referred to the Trust for approval, and we’ve seen no evidence to suggest that it should be.”