BBC online had its ambitions curtailed this morning when the Trust rejected their plans for the local online video news service. Local newspapers and regional broadcasters are breathing a collective sigh of relief, because for the industry’s structure one of the reasons cited was the negative impact on commercial media. But the statement from Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons that “the BBC’s priority should be improving the quality of existing services” is controversial in a different way. The majority of those in the media group see online as being at the heart of those existing services, so today’s decision has a much wider implication for the role of the web within the BBC. Since the original joint venture with ICL back in the late 90s and then the launch of their own ISP, the BBC has been challenging the boundaries of where a public service broadcaster’s activities begin and end. Today’s decision may last for a while, but the story of the beeb’s expansion into locally produced video content is far from over.
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