Auntie sh!tcans BBC Store after 18 months The Beeb is to shut its online paid-for streaming service BBC Store from November, just 18 months after it launched. The online facility failed to get off the ground against stiff competition from Netflix and Amazon. Its closure comes as Old Auntie is under increasing pressure to generate cash outside the Licence Fee. …
I run only iPlayer logged in on a Chrome browser. For other BBC content I use FireFox and do not do a BBC login.
As a precaution I checked my BBC login "profile" - and had to untick a lot of boxes that were presumably trying to restrict what I might like to see.
I'm an omnivore - I do not want to live in a pigeon hole that someone assigns me on the basis of what programmes I watch and what news I read.
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BBC on DVD for me too, please. I stopped paying for idiot "TV bundlers, AKA TV blunderers" to pipe commercials into my home and pretend that is part of some valuable package deal over a year ago, and don't miss anything. I already have every DVD of all the 4th Doctor, so what do I need a wicked auntie that takes away my shows from Hulu, so she can put up a weak imitation of a streaming service that a child could run more efficiently than her?! Or refresh the licensed content of better days gone by, rather than the myriad of new shows that had better prove themselves before I bother to watch!?!?
I don't have time for crap TV, or commercials. I have books, video games, a child, and some cats to attend to. I don't need a crap auntie, with a mental problem, telling me when I can watch fucking Tom Baker deliver the goods. Goddammit.
And the BBC Radio app on iOS is fucked in the noggin. I get it SOLELY to hear the non-podcast Formula 1 content, and the fuckers block that like I'm a fucking spy. Piss on you, auntie. Broadcast my shows, or close the fucking shop, bitch. :P
Oh, and Happy Towel Day, loopy froods!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towel_Day
"No, I pulled out my tablet, OTG cable and memory stick and gave him a demonstration of somethings recorded the previous evening."
Indeed. I have a cheap little satellite receiver that can dump the entire transport stream to SD card. I usually watch SD because the data size can be incredible - NHK World runs in at around three and a half gigabyte per hour. That's the same size (more or less) as Brassed Off recorded of FilmFour the other night.
So, I set up my recordings, and when it suits me, I stick the media into my phone's OTG and I watch. Just discovered, by accident, that when the transport stream is recorded, that means everything. Even got subtitles that can be turned on in MXPlayer, for those times of mumbled dialogue or overzealous background music.
This was pretty simple and the receiver plus SD card and adapter come to about fifty quid. So the question is - if it can be done, why isn't it being done? Maybe their annoying lock in captures more people than it annoys? For everybody like you and me that just want a simple way to watch stuff at our convenience, there's a dozen people that would sign up to a restrictive service...?
I bought an ep or two of Power of the Dales on Amazon Video using amazon media credits built up by accepting slightly longer delivery times on some purchases.
Perhaps the BBC refund will cover it for you.
My library on BBC store was mostly got at a discount. Free episodes through O2 promotions, discounted K9 and Company (hence anon post), a Goodies ep...
Okay.
I want The Good Life, Series 3 and 4 in a digital/streaming format. I have the DVD's already, but they are old hat. I pay for my content, and I'll pay for the convenience of online content (e.g. I have a large Amazon Instant Video and Google Play TV/Movie library already).
Currently only series 1&2 are available ANYWHERE else on the net.
I have 1&2 purchased on Amazon, for instance.
Can I get 3&4 on the same service? No.
Am I going to try to remember that I have 1&2 over there and then switch service to get 3&4 over there? I try my best to avoid that already.
Are we talking new content? It was made in the 70's, is shown on all the channels, but like fuck can you actually get it. And if I *had* bought it on BBC Store, I'd now have to find somewhere and buy it all over again.
And then people wonder why you can't make an online business take off - it's junk like this. I WILL PAY SOMEONE TO GIVE ME LEGIT ACCESS and I either get screwed over, wait forever, or literally cannot do it.
And it's not just the BBC. The same applies to lots of the old things that never made the digital age - The Two Of Us still doesn't exist on DVD incorporating all episodes, but they show them occasionally. Even Just Good Friends has the same kind of non-digital stuff.
The reason you can't maintain the business model is because you're trying to control the product rather than actually sell access to it. It's actually counter-productive. And you have zero interest in releasing your archives at all, even if you're publicly funded.
You're sitting on a damn goldmine and you can't be bothered to just give some content to Amazon/Google, let them convert it, stream it, manage it and market it, and say "Give us a pound every time someone buys an episode".
A good idea to make the archive available but awful execution.
Not providing apps on common TV platforms isn't great.
People who like archive material like to own this stuff in case it goes away, this was DRM'd to hell. Now this is going away, you will lose access to your archive! Great!
This guy wrote a good breakdown of all the faults:
https://writtenbyabriton.com/2015/11/06/12-things-very-wrong-with-the-new-bbc-store/
It was also overpriced, one example he gives:
The Good Life, complete: Amazon: 17 pounds. BBC Store: 36 pounds.
Also people into archive TV want some guarantees about the material. They want it in the original format, not some low bandwidth with dodgy resolution with the interlacing removed esp given the cost of this material.
Will the BBC learn from the cost issues, the DRM issues, the poor resolution. Probably not as MBA's and media studies students who work there don't get taught this stuff!
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Typical BBC half cocked balls up,this is what comes of being protected from the real world for so long,they don't have a clue about anything.
They have little idea what others offer,how folk use their media devices or what folk want from the BBC.
They appear to think it's is perfectly ok to charge folk twice for the same content,folk funded the making of programs in the first place through tv tax,now they want more money for the same content,mad,they then totally fail to advertise store services,cripple w&at they did offer and then wonder why it flopped..
Fuhrer may should just end the tv tax BBC have had billions over the decades and seem to think they will always be protected from the real world,even after several warnings over last two decades..
The license fee paid for the content to be made in the first place. I'm not going to pay again - to watch something that technically I've already paid to have made and paid to watch it the first time it was broadcast.
If I buy it on DVD, that's different - I'm not just paying for a license that entitles me to watch the content - and because I physically own the media - I can watch it on whatever device I feel like - including ripping it to my media server and watching it on any of our TVs that have a Chromecast. Since BBC Store took FOREVER to even support the Chromecast (despite supporting it on iPlayer) then had I actually wanted to buy something from the store (and I was tempted at launch) - I couldn't actually have watched it on anything remotely convenient.
If they had thought the whole thing out properly from the start......
The licence fee paid for it to be made and broadcast that time but not necessarily for it to be shown again.
A lot of old material was made with the expectation it would be shown once, and that was it. And the scriptwriters, producers, actors, etc were paid on that basis. With the introduction of VCR, DVD, and streaming the contracts have moved to reflect the new distribution and repeat showings but the old contracts are not necessarily retroactively changed.
See also
https://www.directors.uk.com/distribution/bbc-residuals
And at the same time - they couldn't actually cope with requests (other than telling me it was a good idea).
I asked if it was possible to stick the BBC produced Carmen (Bollywood) Opera that was performed live in Bradford and broadcast on BBC Three.
It's not available on Amazon, Google Play, Netflix, iPlayer (or any *ahem* alternative sources). I was happy to buy a copy - but nothing ever came of the request and clearly now it never will.
I think the BBC's budget should be frozen or even reduced, but it's terms of reference should be slashed - it should be prohibited from making or buying programs that are pure populist entertainment or sport with little or no 'public good' merit. In short, fund it to make and show only programs that have merit but that the commercial networks won't show.
One can argue about what has merit - I'd envisage it being primarily educational in broad terms, eg documentaries of the sort it already does so well, stuff for schools and children (that isn't simply entertainment for the sake of it), news and current affairs and so on.
It should also be charged with preserving, and making available to everyone at nominal charge, all its archives. Any future programmes made for the BBC should include a licence to facilitate this.
Finally I think the licence fee should be subsumed into general taxation, to reflect the BBC's role as a supplier of public goods, alongside social care, education, health, defence, arts subsidies etc.
realise this was from a couple of weeks ago, but had an online chat with BBC Store "Support" this morning.
I got a bit less angry with the guy when he mentioned they themselves are being let go as part of this; according to the agent, they've actually tried to un-DRM the content as a test, and failed - whoever locked it up did it completely. There is no guidance from senior management as to what will happen; they are to tell customers that no, they didn't buy content, the "buy" button did not mean that at all, just because it said "buy" on it, and we should have realised that. Some or all of the content will possibly be available at some point via one of three providers (Google, Amazon Video or iTunes), but they cannot answer questions as to when, whether costs will be involved, which content will be on which platform, or get into any conversation about specific details like that. In other words, the Support people have been told to tell customers thanks for your money, bye bye. Oh, if you can be bothered, you can have your money back - but we're still taking your content off you. in the same way as if you buy a DVD in a shop, we would assume the right to come along and take the DVD back.
If GB want to have a State Broadcasting service, the state should pay for it. -simples
The whole idea of a license to watch TV is considered ludicrous by a lot of the world.
The BBC should be free to pursue commercial route to market, e.g TopGear-Tomtom, that was a good idea but demolished by stupid BBC contact rules. Its DG and board should be sacked, as its wasted every commercial opportunity to exploit its best content e.g. Top Gear, Dr Who (10 yrs in no mans land due to D.G. stupidity), Horizon, and others, in addition to its documentaries.
Why should the population pay a tax for simply having a TV.
The BBC is a last century enigma that should be put in a museum.
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