BBC to Put Entire Radio & TV Archive Online

Not so long ago, a number of media companies were complaning about the BBC as unfair competition, as it’s governement funded. They’re going to be even more upset now.

bq.. The BBC is to to put “it’s entire radio and television archive online”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3177479.stm, free for everyone, as the BBC Creative Archive. The article is a little thin on how far back these archives go, but regardless, this in a giantic amount of data, and to see it go online, and open to the public is very cool.

>> Slashdot | BBC to Put Entire Radio & TV Archive Online

p. Update: Danny O’Brien has “posted a stirring piece to his blog”:http://www.oblomovka.com/entries/2003/08/24#1061749500, explaining what makes this so darned cool. [Via “BoingBoing”:http://boingboing.net/]

Another great explanation at Hanging Day: “The BBC Creative Archive: what the Internet was invented for”:http://www.hangingday.co.uk/archives/000603.shtml.

The BBC has been “around since 1922”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1231593.stm. That’s more content than can be watched in a lifetime! “BBC Radio”:http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ has been broadcasting online for quite a while now.

More discussion/thoughts at:

* “PlasticBag.org”:http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2003/08/tories_would_close_bbc_website.shtml

* “Metafilter”:http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/27892


*Update:* May 26 2004:

bq.. In a significant step forward towards the opening of a portion of the BBC’s archives, the BBC today made their intentions for the Creative Archives clearer to other UK broadcasters and public sector organisations. The Creative Archive, originally announced by Greg Dyke in 2003, plans to offer the British public free access to some of the BBC’s audio and video programming.

This afternoon the first meeting of an external consultative panel, which included many UK media holders, heard the BBC’s decision that it will base the Creative Archive usage licence on the Creative Commons (CC) model. This confirmation follows some speculation on the subject. The CC model turns copyright on its head by explaining the ways that the content can be used rather than saying it cannot – or Some Rights Reserved as they put it. By happy coincidence, ‘Creative Commons 2.0’:http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/4216 was released yesterday.

>> ‘BBC Creative Archive licensing to be based on Creative Commons’:http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=distribution&id=1254 via ‘boingboing’:http://www.boingboing.net/2004/05/26/bbc_to_use_creative_.html and ‘Slashdot’:http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/26/180232

4 thoughts on “BBC to Put Entire Radio & TV Archive Online”

  1. Wow thats kewlll or the best news of the month. before this, National Geographic’s publishing their alltime data on CDs couldn’t met its hype since the PDFs were oftenly unreadable especially the magazine published around 1890s and laters. But we hope BBC’s gonna rock again this time. I have to think about the time, I came out of BBC’s site frustrated 😐 Such an impressive team and such an impressive work done well. Any news agency in Pakistan to follow the brits?

  2. I think it would take a number of years for them to actually have even part of their archive online. They would most probably charge an access fee for people outside the UK to cover bandwidth costs. It remains to be seen what the quality of the online archives will be.

  3. And who knows that before actually that happens, Conservative part’s spokesmen are trying hard to put a FULL STOP to some of the many services this Public media company’s website. BBC’s services are under review by the government right now and not to mention labor party’s not pleased with BBC anyway thinking or assuming BBC’s content is unnecessary in growing or established content based sites. BBC might have to charge some fee for its new channels’ site which again would hurt TheSun and Times hopefully:-) However, once decent broadband is in the town, I really want to get hooked onto Internet Radio and BBC radio would be a rage at the least. I am just sick of spidering through dull, myopic sites. And flash doesn’t please me either. — do you think we can have access to PBS station somehow? I would be going for worldcall cable service as well once they reach my apartments but would love to change the service if PBS is available here?

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