BBC turns on Sky and welcomes government call to market Digital Britain

The BBC and Sky are, perhaps unsurprisingly, at loggerheads as to how central the BBC should be in delivering the government’s vision for Digital Britain.

Last week Sky asserted the government should reconsider its call, through the interim Digital Britain report, for the BBC to play a role in marketing broadband Britain and helping to set digital technology and platforms. The satellite broadcaster and ISP claims such a move would distort the market against commercial broadcasters and is, almost certainly, fearful that the all-powerful iPlayer would become the de facto standard and platform for video on demand for broadband users, particularly newcomers being told about Digital Britain through BBC campaigns.

Despite this opposition the BBC has welcomed the call from Lord Carter to play a pivotal role in his vision for Digital Britain. In Carter’s interim report at the end of January the BBC was called up on “to play a leading role, just as it has in digital broadcast, through marketing, cross-promotion and provision of content to drive interest in taking up broadband”.

This was welcomed by the corporation as “a clear and natural development of the BBC’s sixth public purpose, through which it seeks to bring the benefit of emerging technologies to the UK through the provision of content and services”.

The corporation also pointed out that it welcomed the government’s call for it to help content become readily accessible to all revealing that, since the end of last year, it had agreed with an Ofcom suggestion that the iPlayer platform should be open to multiple public service broadcast companies.

Indeed, the whole tone of the BBC’s response to the interim report was one of working in partnership, particularly with other public service broadcasters, and putting behind it the days where it thought of itself as a separate entity from other media companies.

With the government openly considering a merger or partnership of some kind between BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial arm, and Channel 4, it is not hard to imagine why Sky should feel threatened by the government calling on the BBC to play such a central role in the Digital Britain vision.

It comes at a time when two crucial developments are taking place. Firstly, the BBC is talking about opening up the iPlayer to other public service broadcasters (which must surely look like a resurrection of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 joining forces under Project Kangaroo which was deemed anti-competitive and rule out earlier this year). Secondly, it is suggesting that there should be a platform for broadband access to video on demand that spans the internet, Freeview and Freesat.

This Project Canvas idea is a big enough threat to Sky in its own right but include the other service broadcasters and make the BBC responsible for spreading the marketing word about Digital Britain and one can see why Sky feels the need to fight its corner and call on the government to reconsider.

Tags: BBC, BBC Worldwide, Channel 4, Digital Brtain, Freesat, Freeview, iplayer, ITV, Project Canvas, Sky