NDM Case Study ..

How has the impact of new and digital media allow the audience to time shift and watch their programmes online such as BBC Iplayer and 4OD instead of following scheduled timing.

12- Consider theoretical perspectives in relation to the impact of new/ digital media in your case study. E.g. Representation of certain groups as a result of changes, Marxism & Hegemony, Liberal Pluralism, colonialism, audience theories etc.

Consider theoretical perspectives in relation to the impact of new and digital media (BBC iplayer, E-Media). 

Marxist:

Marxism is the idea that hegemonic leaders have control of the audience, all the control and power is down to the media and the society. Audiences never have nor ever will have full control over watch they want and what they want to watch because sub-consciously the media have full power and control to influence the audience.

Pluralist: 

Pluralism means that audiences believe audiences have full power over what they do and what they watch, they believe because of the developments in technology such as time-shifting and BBC iplayer they have all the power, being able to watch a programme wherever and whenever. Pluralist people are quite naive in the sense that audiences can't actually have full power, the media and society will always have a huge influence on the audience.

NDM Case Study ..

How has the impact of new and digital media allow the audience to time shift and watch their programmes online such as BBC Iplayer and 4OD instead of following scheduled timing.

10- What issues may there be regarding media effects and /or regulation/ censorship as a result of changes due to new and digital media?

What issues many there be regarding regulation and censorship of the BBC because of new and digital media (BBC iplayer)?

In terms of Regulation and Censorship the BBC are still in control because people pay for the content that the BBC provides to educate, inform and entertain. 

Ofcom has certain powers to regulate the BBC's licence fee funded television and radio services aimed at audiences in the UK, but not the World Service which is grant-in-aid funded. Ofcom's Broadcasting Code applies in the following areas:

• Protection of under-18s
• Harm and Offence
• Avoidance of inciting crime or disorder
• Responsible approach to religious content
• Prohibition of use of images of very brief duration
• Fairness
• Privacy.

The Editorial Guidelines reflect the provisions of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code in these areas.

11- Are there any cross-cultural factors and /or effects of globalisation involved in the impact of new technology on your case study?

Are there any effects of globalisation involved in the impact of new technology (BBC iplayer, E-Media)? 

The internet being the new way audiences watch Television means our content has become viral, being able to watch programmes from all around the world, however, the BBC only allows their content to be seen in some countries, for example, people in Egypt aren't allowed to watch content on the BBC. This also means BBC iplayer isn't allowed either. 

"Globalisation is usually blamed, but some elements of the "modern world", especially digital technology, are pushing back against the tide." - Jonathan Amos

It could be argued that the reason Egypt and other counties aren't allowed to watch the BBC is because of democracy, England being such a diverse and democratic county will give other counties ideas like China, giving people the confidence to speak up and ask for their rights as humans therefore putting pressure on the leaders of the countries.

NDM Case Study ..

How has the impact of new and digital media allow the audience to time shift and watch their programmes online such as BBC Iplayer and 4OD instead of following scheduled timing.

8- What are the political and social implications of the new technologies and the methods of their consumption? E.g. moral panics etc?

What are the political and social suggestions of BBC iplayer and the way the audience consume Television?

Socially, people suggest that BBC iplayer is the new way of watching BBC. BBC iplayer is mainly popular with the teenage audience, it's easier and better, socially it creates the idea of being flexible, being able to go out with friends and socialising and then coming home and catching up on BBC iplayer. In terms of audiences consuming the programmes, well the website has the option to watch live which enables the audience to relax and watch it wherever, whenever they want. Also with the new download button people are now able to watch their programmes offline, no longer needing the internet.

Is there Still a Place for Public Service Television?

RECONSIDERING THE TELEVISION ENVIRONMENT

The internet offers an enormous selection of content from which consumers may satisfy informational and entertainment needs traditionally met by television. The transition to fully digital television marks an appropriate point to re-examine the economics of television broadcasting and the case for public service broadcasting. The consumer concern recognises that there may be market failures in broadcasting such that it fails to deliver the outputs that consumers themselves want to watch. These priorities are captured by the BBC’s Reithian mission to ‘inform, educate and entertain’. The TV licence fee, which supports the BBC’s public service activities, is currently frozen in nominal terms until BBC charter renewal in 2016; over the longer term multichannel households may prove resistant to substantial increases in its value or object in greater numbers to the principle of a compulsory licence fee. 

Tony Hall: BBC is admired around the world – full speech

Values of the BBC ..

• They can be informed, entertained, educated – and, I would add, inspired
• Anyone in this country who has a television, a radio, a computer, a smart device, has the best seats in the house for the Olympics, a front-row ticket for the best concerts, a box at the theatre for the greatest drama
• Because no other public service is used quite the way the BBC is. Our service reaches 96% of the population in the UK every week. Every week.
• Twenty years ago, the BBC received nearly 40% of all the revenues in broadcasting. Now the figure is around a quarter – 25% – a much smaller part of the media market.

Efficiency of the BBC ..

• Between 2008 and 2013, the BBC delivered savings at an average rate of 3.7% every year. The plans inherited seek another 20% annual savings by 2016/17 – that's an extra 4%, on average, we have to find every year
• We've made the most of our commercial income from BBC Worldwide, with returns to the BBC for investment in programmes reaching over £150m last year.

The licence fee ..

• The BBC's mission is to inform, educate and entertain. The licence fee means we must do this for all, not just for some.
• Universal access and the licence fee support each other. Because nearly everyone in the country uses us every week, we are not asking people who do not use the service to pay for it.
• Support for the licence fee is at 53% – way ahead of subscription on 17% and advertising on 26%. It's the top choice for funding the BBC across all ages, all social-economic groups and whether you're in a Freeview, Sky or Virgin household.
• Yet having no advertising is one of the characteristics that people most value about the BBC
• It's not just the interruption that people dislike. Advertising would also narrow the range of content on the BBC. And by taking advertising money away from ITV and Channel 4 it would make public service broadcasting much worse across the board.

9- Consider the effects so far, and possible effects in the future, on media institutions involved in your case study (media production).

Consider the effects on the BBC so far and the possible effects in the future because of BBC iplayer?

The BBC haven't been effected that badly because BBC iplayers controlled and owned by the BBC and is paid for through the License Fee. In the future it can only get better for the BBC because Tony Hall wants to increase the License Fee so that it covers the online bases of the BBC, at the moment the BBC charge 55p per month which doesn't really cover the amount of people that use BBC iplayer, now that it's become more popular than the traditional way of watching TV.  

There’s also been lots of talk about the availability of iPlayer, there’s news about plans for the Mac version and a US version too is apparently on the way. We, though, can give a different perspective, a bit of insight on things and maybe explode a few myths. Here’s just a few headlines:

• 5% growth in total average usage since 1st December
• 66% growth in volume of streaming traffic since 1st December
• 2% growth in the number of customers using their connection for streaming since 1st December
• 72% growth in the number of customers using over 250MB of streaming in a month since December
• 100% growth in the number of customers using over 1GB of streaming in a month since December
• Cost of carrying streaming traffic increased from £17,233 to £51,700 per month

At the moment the majority of this growth in traffic will be down to iPlayer (with some 4OD and Sky Anytime thrown in) and likely most people will be watching it on their PCs. We can only imagine what the growth will be like when that majority shifts from the PC to the TV.

NDM Case Study ..

How has the impact of new and digital media allow the audience to time shift and watch their programmes online such as BBC Iplayer and 4OD instead of following scheduled timing.

7- What concerns/ considerations are there (if any) for the media institutions involved in your case study as a result of the impact of new and digital media? 

What concerns are there for the BBC traditional television as a result of the impact of new and digital media (BBC iplayer)?

The traditional ways of watching television is slowly dying, there's a concern that people will no longer need TV because everything's online, being able to watch something whenever and wherever they want. However, is the BBC really effected? No, because of the TV license, the audience having to pay £145.50 annual which covers BBC iplayer. The BBC don't suffer as much as, for example ITV because they rely on adverts to make their money and if the audience no longer watch their channels, advertising will go somewhere more popular. At the BBC, the proportion of public service expenditure attributed to online activities (including mobile) has gradually increased over time and reached 5.8 per cent in 2007–8.

Its Time To Break Up BBC iPlayer

Steve Hewlett published an article in the press last week that suggested Tony Hall’s big challenge was to sort out the BBC’s ‘digital’ strategy. Steve was onto something in latching onto ‘digital’ as a key area requiring attention, but we think he erred in thinking that ‘digital’ was somehow a separate problem to core strategy. This article makes the case that you can’t separate ‘digital’ from the rest of BBC strategy. More importantly, it makes the case that there is a fundamental flaw in the way new media, and iPlayer in particular, are organised and managed within the core of the BBC. We believe that this flaw is now having a significant impact on the arguably more important BBC broadcast brands. BBC announcements in the last month have highlighted the need for a fundamental re-think.

The announcement of poor BBC2 viewing figures spoke a broadcaster that is losing sight of its core broadcast function. Our research indicates that poor scheduling and weak brand support for BBC2 has played its part in the audience decline, but the failure to support broadcast brands online, in favour of iPlayer is a big factor – particularly with young audiences. It is instructive that iPlayer has become a more recognisable brand than the BBC’s second most important TV brand, even though it delivers a fraction of the total viewing time.

-But What Is The Flaw and Why Does It Matter?

The central flaw that concerns us is that the iPlayer team control not only innovation and future developments of iPlayer, but they retain operational control of day-to-day delivery of BBC online output. They also control, and have dramatically reduced the wider web presence of the channel brands and restrict their ability to express themselves and build connections with their viewers.

The same applies to YouView, which should have been a broadcast centric platform, designed to maximise the interests of the channels. Unfortunately, it was colonised early by iPlayer people and went ‘platform-centric’. It is possible to spend an evening watching BBC3 content, and come away with the YouView and iPlayer logos lodged in your brain. The emphasis on iPlayer has also robbed the broadcast channels of the tools to build audience relationships on the web and mobile. 

What people appear to have forgotten is that iPlayer was designed and created as an alternative destination to broadcast, at a time when people still feared that the internet would beat TV and not the other way round. It most certainly wasn’t designed as a support component of a broadcast centric organisation. It was created by a team led by Anthony Rose who declared at a conference that year that ‘broadcast is dead’. Its look and feel, was created to sit outside the core branding of BBC channels and genres, and it was intended to eventually develop its own content strategy. It was effectively set up as the ‘anti-BBC’. The world of TV has changed significantly since iPlayer’s inception.

-Why Does This Matter?

Decipher make the case that this matters for two reasons: Firstly, this is our licence-fee money that is being used to prop up personal fiefdoms, and fund huge amounts of over-lapping or unnecessary activity. The current structure reflects the personal egos of Eric Huggers and Ashley Highfield, not the current needs of the BBC. To have a separate Head of FutureMedia and BBC R&D while claiming poverty under the DQF process is iniquitous.

Secondly, and more importantly, it hampers the proper evolution of the BBC as a broadcast centric organisation. In 1997, the BBC was 3 years ahead of any other UK broadcaster. It is now well behind the curve with ITV and Channel4 having done a much better job of integrating new media into a wider broadcast operation. The BBC like to hold themselves up as a template for other broadcasters. Not only can they no longer do this, but unless this flaw is rectified, they will fall further behind in defining the 21 century role for broadcasters.

-Recommendations

We would make the following recommendations:

• Clarify the key centre of gravity for TV and Radio in the BBC – We believe that this should be the broadcast channels and their brands, with new media distribution strategy rebuilt to support not compete with them. The BBC is, at heart, a broadcast organisation and it needs to be communicated clearly internally and externally.

• Retire the black and pink iPlayer branding completely- It is a divisive brand livery and the BBC should unify the branding and presentation of on-demand content with the broadcast genres (TV and radio) that its meant to support. This means there should be a single brand architecture for TV at the BBC, with individual channel identities built within it. BBC iPlayer look and feel should reflect this TV brand architecture not compete against it as present. This is what ITV have successfully done with the recent ITV Player re-design.

• Stop trying to build iPlayer as a BBC ‘platform’. However hard you want it to be true, no consumer views content that way any more. It is a strategy that will eventually isolate the BBC, not help it retains its position as the dominant beast in the broadcast TV pack. It is a strategy that works well in the export market, as a US iPlayer demonstrates.

Case Study Digital Media Story ..

Google: 80% of news organisations are targeted by state hackers

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/28/google-news-organisations-targeted-state-hackers

More than four-fifths of the world's top media organisations, including the Guardian, have been the target of likely state sponsored hacking attacks, according to research from two Google security engineers. Presented at the ongoing Black Hat Asia 2014 conference in Singapore, Shane Huntley and Morgan Marquis-Boire's research shows that journalists are "massively over-represented" among the targets of state-sponsored hackers. While the pair didn't go into detail about their methodology, they confirmed to Reuters that Google "tracks the state actors that attack our users". Those who the company suspects have been the target of such attacks are notified by a banner across the top of their webmail login, such as this displayed to Guardian staffers since mid-Mar:

Huntley told Reuters that "if you're a journalist or a journalistic organisation we will see state-sponsored targeting and we see it happening regardless of region, we see it from all over the world both from where the targets are and where the targets are from." Google's advice to those it suspects of being a state target is simple. "Be careful about where you sign in to Google.

It does not, however, share information about what specifically prompted the warning, in order "to help defend the integrity of these systems". Instead, the company explains that "it's likely that you received emails containing malicious attachments, links to malicious software downloads, or links to fake websites that are designed to steal your passwords or other personal information."

In April 2013, the Guardian was the victim of a hacking attack by the Syrian Electronic Army, activists linked to Bashar al-Assad's regime. The Twitter accounts for Guardian Music, Guardian Film and Guardian Books, as well as a number of staffers, were taken over by the group following a "spear phishing" attack: targeted emails designed to trick users into revealing their passwords.

NDM Case Study ..

How has the impact of new and digital media allow the audience to time shift and watch their programmes online such as BBC Iplayer and 4OD instead of following scheduled timing.

5- Who are the primary target audience now and has this changed? Who was it before and how do you know?

Who are the primary target audience that use BBC Iplayer and watch the BBC, has it changed from before? Who was it before and how do you know?

BBC Audience Information

BBC One has the highest reach of all the BBC channels with nearly 80 per cent of the UK population (4+) tuning in for seven and a half hours each week on average. Certain BBC television channels (BBC Three, CBBC and CBeebies) have specified target audiences. For example:

• BBC Three is targeted at 16-34 year olds. Those 16-34 year-olds who view BBC Three watch, on average, for longer per week than the average viewer of the channel (2h 02m vs. 1h 43m). 
• The target audience of CBeebies is 0-6 year olds. As BARB measures 4+ year olds only, the CBeebies target audience’s viewing is captured by measuring the viewing of 4-6 year-olds and housewives with children up to 3 years old. 45 per cent of this group watches 
• CBeebies and in January – March 2011 they spent 4 hours 54 minutes with the channel on average per week.

Service Review Younger audiences: BBC Three, Radio 1 and 1Xtra

The BBC is a major media provider for younger audiences, with more than 9 out of 10 young people using BBC services each week.  The BBC delivers some of its public purposes well to young people but faces challenges to deliver news to them, and to serve teenagers on television. Despite the huge growth in choice of media, the BBC remains a very important part of young people’s media consumption. The BBC reaches around 92 per cent of 15-34 year olds each week and BBC television remains successful at reaching younger audiences, although its usage has declined significantly in recent years.

BBC Online has become an important part of the BBC’s offering to young people. More than one-quarter (28 per cent) of all 16 to 34 year olds use BBC Online each week, the same proportion as all adults, making BBC Online the fifth most popular website for this age group in the UK, behind Google, MSN, Facebook and Yahoo. Reach to BBC Online among younger audiences has risen by around 9 percentage points since 2003. Some sections of BBC Online have particularly strong appeal to younger audiences, notably the formal learning websites for children and young adults. BBC Online reached an average 42 per cent of teenagers per month, compared with 51 per cent of all individuals. 

6- How have the audience responded to the changes? Is there more customer choice? Is there evidence of a more pluralistic model? What evidence do you have to support this?

How have the audiences responded to the changes (the development of digital media)? Is there more customer choice? Is there evidence of a more pluralistic model? What evidence do you have to support this? 

I would say the audiences have adapted to the changes of the development of digital media by giving them a better choice. The audiences are given more choices, they have a range of programmes and they're enabled to watch their programmes whenever and wherever they want. The audiences are allowed to time-shift, using the red button, online services, on-demand or the plus channels. People would argue that the world has changed to a more pluralistic view, people being in control of everything, having the power and not being controlled by the media because of all the options they have now. 

Case Study Digital Media Story:

MORE CONTROL AND MORE CHOICE: PICTURING THE TV AUDIENCES OF TOMORROW

http://www.redbeemedia.com/blog/more-control-and-more-choice-picturing-tv-audiences-tomorrow

Expect a media revolution.

The way we consume media is changing forever, driven by new technologies that are turning traditional thinking on its head. At the same time, viewer attitudes and behaviours continue to evolve at a pace, with the great experiences from BBC iPlayer and Sky Go stimulating an increasing desire for “anywhere, anytime” viewing. With these seismic changes taking place, we’re hoping to shed some light on the needs and wants of the TV audiences of tomorrow at our second Tomorrow Calling event, when we will reveal and discuss findings from an in-depth consumer survey.

We are in no doubt that the appetite for TV viewing is growing. The way it is delivered, how content is watched and the way content is found are some of foundations of the media revolution. The ubiquitous uptake of connected TV sets will start to blur the boundaries of how TV is delivered. It is at this point where the audience will not care how their TV is being delivered, and the connected TV will enable them to seamlessly shift from a live linear viewing experience into a catch up or VoD environment. This will dramatically change the landscape of the content aggregator.

A different but equally important change to the future viewing experience is led by the explosion of companion devices, opening up TV to benefit from technical innovations. With this change there will be expectations of a “media grade” TV experience across all devices, no matter what piece of glass you are looking through.

The consumer wants more control and more choice and they get frustrated because they can’t find content they want to watch. Within this context the electronic programme guide (EPG) along with the remote control navigation is set to change dramatically over the next few years. A new and intelligent form of content discovery will help guide viewers through a potentially baffling array of content and give them more. Fast forward to 2020 and great TV content has an exciting future, the communal TV experience seems set to stay, but it will increasingly be in a virtual sense.

NDM Case Study ..

How has the impact of new and digital media allow the audience to time shift and watch their programmes online such as BBC Iplayer and 4OD instead of following scheduled timing.

4- Is the size of the audience any different now than before the impact of new and digital media (or has the pattern of usage changed)?

BBC Audience Information

January - March 2011 - BBC TV Research ..  

Average Weekly Research and Average Weekly Time Spent per User:

Television viewing in the UK remains strong, despite the wide range of media competing for viewers’ time. Across its nine television channels the BBC reached nearly 88 per cent (50 million) of the UK public aged 4+ on average in January – March 2011. And they spent over 11 hours a week on average watching BBC television. 

BBC Digital Media Services Research ..

How does the BBC measure research of BBC digital media services? 

Unlike Television and Radio, there is no industry standard for online measurement within the UK; therefore the BBC uses a wide range of sources to assess performance of BBC Online. The number of people consuming BBC digital media services (BBC Online and Red Button) is measured via bespoke surveys - in which people are asked which services they have used within a week. Time spent Online is not included due to the lack of an industry standard and a consistent methodology for online measurement. 

How many people consume BBC digital media services each week? 

January – March 1 2011 - Online & Mobile

41.8 per cent (20.2 million) of UK adults used BBC Online and BBC Mobile in an average week. This equates to 57.4 per cent of those who have access to the internet in the UK.

Red Button 

30 per cent of UK adults with digital TV (12million) pressed the Red Button to access a variety of BBC Red Button services in an average week.

From all this research, I can conclude that the size of the audience isn't different than before the impact of new and digital media because the audience viewers is still higher than the BBC iplayer.