What does #digitalbritain mean for journalism?
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With the sort of hype only the media can generate when talking about itself, Lord Carter’s long awaited Digital Britain report has been published. It’s supposed to be the blueprint for Britain’s place in the digital world. But is it putting us in a good place?
It comes as journalism’s plight grows even greater; ITV news, Channel 4, countless struggling radio groups and newspaper holdings will all be sifting to see if it contains their saviour…or their downfall.
01. Broadband
The Promise: 2Mbps broadband for everyone (and “action separately to address the issue of next generation broadband”)
Result?: epic fail. While broadband for everyone is great, 2Mbps […buffering…] broadband is inadequate for […buffering…] the growing needs of digital journalism including […buffering…] the huge demand for […buffering…] video on demand. Separate action to […buffering…] investigate faster broadband looks like […buffering…] the buck being well and truly passed.
Meanwhile, in South Korea: “1Gbps Downloading by 2012”
Will it help journalism? Not really. If online video and multimedia is going to start picking up the cash from traditional media it needs to be reliable and fast.
02. Radio
The Promise: All national radio stations to be on DAB only by 2015 ending use of analogue. Spare FM frequencies for “new tier” of community radio. More local news.
Result: fail. DAB is soo last decade, and while the radio sets look quite pretty, by the time this is rolled out, we’ll all be listening to radio on our iPhones. Over the internet. The folks at MixCloud rightly pointed out last night the real investment needs to be in online radio, and making sure the network can cope with it. It also says nothing about the plight of local commercial radio stations, caused by the filthy binge on new licences by Ofcom.
Creating a “new tier” of hyper local community stations is a nice idea – provided they don’t have to be commercially viable. And more local news? Who Lord Carter expects to pay for that (when newsrooms across the land are cutting staff) is a mystery.
Will it help journalism? An emphasis on localness might fool some Whitehall bureaucrats into investing more in local journalism. But don’t hold your breath.
03. Regional TV news
The Promise: 3.5% of BBC’s licence fee (~£130m) to be available to help regional TV news on ITV
Result: good news for ITV. It has been long argued on all sides, the BBC needs strong competition in regional news to keep its standards up. And while that is the case £130m is a lot to spend investing in the “a local lady has turned 100” fluff which ITV regions currently put on air.
Will it help journalism? In the short term ITV local news does need the cash, and this might even save some jobs. But once again Lord Carter has missed the trick. What we need is a new way of doing television news, for example Michael Rosenblum‘s VJ newsroom model. Meanwhile, no word about the BBC’s real competition: Channel 4 News.
04. Hyperlocal news 
The Promise: No promises here, just a recognition that grassroots online projects are good for democracy
Result: fail. Lord Carter says he likes the growing number of hyper-local community sites, but says there can’t be a gap between what these start ups offer, and what the traditional big boys offer. So he’s investing in making sure newspaper groups and the BBC can offer better online, including, bizarrely, an idea to let newspapers use BBC video content. Considering the row over BBC Local in 2007, that’s pretty hilarious.
Will it help journalism: well there’s no promises here, so it’s up to the people to forge the way.
05. Childrens’ Programmes
The Promise: Money to help Channel 4 develop services for that most difficult of audiences: 10-18 year olds
Result: good news. Channel 4 are best placed to understand this market, and embarrassing dad-dancing attempts by the BBC have shown they’re not really “down with the kids”. It won’t solve Channel 4’s funding crisis though.
Will it help journalism: any investment in actually creating content is a good thing.
All government reports, like Christmas presents from your grandparents, are always a little disappointing; sadly yesterday’s report fails to really grasp or embrace the mouth watering potential of the future.
Lord Carter: as us bluggers and twotters and myface yoof types say: “epic fail”.
Adam Westbrook // ideas on digital storytelling and publishing 
Like many – you have SOOOOOO it seems that you have missed the point here with Digital Radio. To date it has not been allowed or enabled to deliver the vast range of Audio, Video and Data services for which it it was initially designed, – let alone the plethora of ecxciting wizzbangs that have evolved since the1980s!
The Eureka 147 “Family” of DAB,DAB+ and T-DMB are capable of delivering truely spectacular Audience experiences. Now that Broadcasters do not have to contemplate funding Analogue AND Digital transmission networks, the investment can be focuesd on delivering the enhanced user experiences that the technology has been straing to deliver for so long.
I am truely heartened by the prospect and in common with many in the industry am also eagerly awaiting the growth in the varioud market sectors that this will enable – good for UK Audiences, Good for UK Broadcasters, Good For UK Business, Good for UK Exports as well (as the UK does have numerous Eureka 147 based companies that will doubtless see a growth inbusiness as the rest of the world sees the UK committing to the technology at last as a single that it is now “OK” for them to do likewise.
Thumbs up for Digital Britain.
[…] Westbrook, a local media journalism commentator and reporter summed it up very well on his recent post here: The Promise: 2Mbps broadband for everyone (and “action separately to address the issue of next […]