People misconstrue each others intentions, and some times media adds to the whole confusion.

http://www.tekno-world.blogspot.com

State sponsored business is never good. Let the free market decide.

My two cents.

Everyone in the UK can do whatever they like. Still, I hope PBS in the United States gets shutdown because there are many perfectly good television stations and I think it is a horrible waste of money. If it can survive without government funding, then so be it.

Again, the Brits can do whatever they like.

Haha how is the guy when you say that:

“oooooooo…..WHAT..Are you serious…..Are you crazy…..OH….I’m a stupid pomp that needs to remove the pole out of my arse!”

Good work Mike - what a classic

Listen to the video, the guy is about to commit suicide himself at the thought of the BBC dissolving haha

In the case of The Jam project I think its a bad thing to stop the funding for. I remember when I was in school (only 4 years ago now) and back then the BBC was the real front runner with its bitesize online revision guide. Even today there is nothing that compares for free.

The whole ad subsidy model is fine for grown up entertainment but for education it isn’t used and when that is the case I think if the Department of Education isn’t going to step in the BBC should.

Some other BBC projects are certainly outside their remit but as long as they stay with audio/visual entertainment, news, sport and public education I see no problem.

“State sponsored business is never good. Let the free market decide.”

There are a number of things that the BBC provides that the private sector does poorly. The two things that stick out to me are News and Children’s content. Perhaps you could lump educational content in there too.

I know I want my news from an independent source, and advertising to kids is pretty cynical. The free market fails.

Perhaps the BBC is stretching itself too far, but experimentation is good and they are well regulated on several fronts. It’s still finding its feet in this brave new world of the internet… which is still pretty new when compared to the BBC’s 85 year history.

Disclaimer: Although this is my personal point of view, I do work for the BBC.

The idea that the BBC is independent is, frankly, hilarious. Even many BBC journalists admit that it’s a left-liberal organisation.

Hard to keep politics out of this debate, unfortunately. I’d agree that the BBC is a pretty leftie organisation, but perhaps that forms a useful counter-balance against the more right-leaning elements of the commercial sector.

Anyway, to the point. The net result of this decision, politics aside, is a) the loss of a useful learning tool for children and b) a waste of a great deal of taxpayers’ money. A pretty sad state of affairs.

Bishop, “independence” is a myth, full-stop, a red herring. The BBC is no more subject to the bias of its employees and managers than any other organisation, but it is strongly regulated, and the nature of its business, especially its public service remit, naturally makes it “liberal”. It works hard to ensure that journalistically it is independent, inasmuch as it challenges politicians of all stripes, and it is a vital part of the media ecosystem here. I never object to the licence fee because it’s a bargain, and because if it were not for the products that result from it we might be subject only to programming that had to serve financially-motivated masters. The market fails to provide all areas that the public deems to be worth providing for, and face it, the BBC enables the UK to punch well above its weight on the international media scene simply because it can put more emphasis on quality than profit. That said, too much money is spent on light-weight stuff for my taste, but that is a balance that must be struck so that all licence payers feel they have got value.
As far as Jam is concerned, this is terribly sad. The BBC, and many of us in traditional organisations (a museum in my case), are working to establish a space we can opeate in, when boundaries between broadcasting, publishing, exhibiting, educating etc. are crumbling or shifting. Jam contains great content, and in the absence of a public service publisher (as opposed to broadcaster) the BBC is very well placed to provide content in this area. There must be ways in which they can work alongside business. In the end, they offer for free what you would have to pay for from Scholastic, Espresso etc., (and Jam is targetted specifically at kids, who won’t pay. It’s not designed for teachers to deploy in a classroom). As a parent, I’m all for it.

The thing that strikes me about this is that before it could get launched the whole BBC Jam (or Digital Curiculum project as it was originally known) went through loads and loads of regulatory red tape to even get going - so how it can have got this far and cost so much and then be closed down astonishes me.

Disclaimer - I used to work for the BBC

You called for the dissolution of the Beeb? That’s classic!

Jason Cartwright - “BBC provides that the private sector does poorly. The two things that stick out to me are News-”

I don’t know about News. If you’re talking about the Today programme on Radio4, then I agree with you wholeheartedly, but not BBC news. There is a view held in the industry that post-Hutton report the BBC have dumbed down and lack the same balls that they had when they made that fateful report on the Today programme back in 2003.

BBC’s future is not welcoming; they’ve been given a less than wanted TV licence fee increase whilst having to deal with the move to Manchester (in order to save money vis a vis the horrid cost of living in London), as well as prepare the country for the digital switchover.

The problem is also that people are thought now to spend more time on the Internet than watching the telly, so how will the Beeb justify their TV license?

The Internet looks most likely to be the future for the organisation. COming back to the complaints that the Beeb are an unfair competitor due to the nature of their state funding, the same criticism has been levelled by many in the media industry, from the Daily Mail’s editor Paul Dacre, to the likes of ITV and the other major media establishment of the UK, Rupert Murdoch.

There is however a strong public consensus for having a state-sponsered media organisation, and so their future is secured for now. Whether that opinion holds in the future depends on how well the BBC serves the British public.

Expect to see the BBC push further onto the net.

I think this is rather sad, yes the BBC is a public funded body but they also do a huge amount for UK education via the JAM project and other services over the years for GCSE and other exams.

It would be a shame if the BBC was forced to curtail its online education resorce because of BIG business.

One easy fix would be for the BBC to open up the service to allow those that feel hard done by to provide hooks into it that may allow them to grow and share in its succcess.

Im sick to death of businesses moaning in the education sector its about time they stoped looking on education as a cash cow and realised that what ever helps children to learn must be the top prority and if the BBC can manage that then good luck to them.

BBC NEWS is one of the top online destinations in the world but you dont hear the newspapers crying foul.

Just my 2 pence.

It goes without saying that the BBC is a beast with 2 sides. Sure it makes great content sometimes, but the arrogance of it to lock people up for not paying a ridiculous fee for content you may not be interested in is many many steps too far. Lets hope the end is nigh for the arrogant bastards in this arena.

Kids deserve access to advertising-free content. It is that simple. I won’t let my daughter watch commercial TV because of the advertising, so losing something like Jam this gives me less places for my daughter to go look on the web. A pity.

This is education we are talking about. It should never be full of ads.

Long live the BBC!

http://kosso.wordpress.com/200.....e-the-bbc/

if BBC Jam is providing a valuable service for educating youth, I think its crazy to cut the funding.

Here in America we have Disney, Fox Cartoons, and all kinds of violent and mindless crap flooding the TV waves / web to de-educate our kids, feed consumerism, and fatten the pockets of private companies.

Well done free market, another stellar job.

StartupCrunch, are you running a TechCrunch rip-off site? I might add, anonymously…

Ouch, that sucks. When I was younger the BBC was the best place to go to for help with revision for school exams. Everywhere else either provided poor quality content, was overflowing with intrusive adverts or were pay sites. Its a shame that the BBc has to shut down a good service where the commercial providers dont compare quality wise.

“State sponsored business is never good. Let the free market decide.”

I’m not sure I fully agree. While the BBC’s financial resources do create a significant challenge for upstarts in any area the BBC has a presence in, sometimes having significant capital and being a large organization is a significant disadvantage as well that creates significant opportunities for smaller companies. Competition drives innovation and if a “state-sponsored business” can compete successfully in the marketplace without the government creating a monopoly for it, isn’t the market still deciding after all?

If the threat of competition from the BBC is what is between the success and failure of a startup, then that startup doesn’t deserve funding. In other words, if your idea is obvious enough that everyone else will be doing it, might it not be a good idea to rethink your idea? There’s a little thing in business called ‘competition’, and if you can’t stand up to a public service broadcaster, whinging about it isn’t the appropriate response - building a better product is.

Would Twitter or Flickr or Google be built in the UK? Of course not. Wanna know why? Because they’re products which work on this plan: build a system that’s great first and then monetise it afterwards. But that doesn’t sell ringtones and trainers to the kids. We’re still at the “sticky eyeballs” moment of development, and it’s going to take the Valley kicking our arse for a few more years before anyone in London realises.

Until that time, Ian and the folks at the BBC are going to keep developing cool stuff - not to compete with British startups, but because British companies are too interested in selling shit to sticky eyeballs to innovate.

It’s worth pointing out that BBC Jam has been good for the UK’s independent sector as well: a large chunk of the money spent so far has been on production teams outside of the BBC (disclaimer: I’ve been part of one for the past year), albeit more likely to be within well-established companies than startups…

The losers of this shutdown will be independent content producers and design / production houses. The BBC commissioned at least half the content on the Jam website out of house.

This is what everyone forgets when criticising the BBC. Yes it gets given 3ish billion pounds a year, but it spends a huge amount of that commissioning content from production houses.

When the BBC spends less money (because it’s not allowed as much income) the WHOLE of the UK media industry suffers.

I don’t see why you should be reticent from commenting on the matter. State subsidies to Airbus are a matter of concern to all companies that compete in the transportation sector, regardless of whether they are European or not. BBC subsidies likewise affect companies in the education sector worldwide as bbc.co.uk is accessible from outside Britain.

Bishop and Cennydd- Please explain how the BBC is a “left-liberal” / “leftie” organization. How about substantiating your argument? Please use examples and provide just ONE example of a news source that is more objective (let me guess… Fox News?)

Does “leftie” mean objective news reporting without any concern for offending sponsors?

I don’t use the BBC online at all, but am an avid radio listener. There simply isn’t anything better though the CBC and NPR are fairly good as well.

Challenge: Pick a topic and a “better” news source, and we (or just I) can explore all the news reported by each of these services. We can see what “experts” each turned to for advice, which opinions were covered, and to what extent.

Or, just call me a “leftie” because you can only use ad hominem arguments…

It’s a double edged sword. My wife is involved with a soon-to-launch startup in the UK education sector, so I speak with some experience.

The BBC provide a fantastic service with Bitesize and Jam, whilst stimulating the education market in general. They’ve invested heavily in outside development companies for the content and have restrictions on exactly what they can provide in case they become anti-competitive. They also provide quality, free content, which is sorely lacking in independent educational material over here.

But they are the 800lb gorilla and need to be carefully monitored to make sure that they aren’t stifling competition. I’m surprised at the move, but don’t know the ins and outs of the complaints.

My wife has never whinged about Jam being a competitor to their service, seen it as a positive and factored it into their business planning…they (the BBC) are not going anywhere and as a startup it’s about spotting the gap in the market that they aren’t catering to. Same as any other market.

The BBC has been a pioneer and innovator accross all sectors since it started. As the sponsor of a microcomputer for everyone in the 1970’s it kicked off the educational software market in the UK.

My main regret is that it was not pioneering and innovative as it might have been with JAM.

It should be mentioned that the commercial sector has also been given special treatment by the UK taxpayer. Schools have had ring-fenced funds to spend on eLearning product - an advantage that no other industry has ever had. The UK govt spend per capita on ICT for schools is substantial and you only have to see the scope of the trade show BETT to appreciate it. To whinge seems inappropriate. I do not think it will be start-ups who are crying foul (it is not hampering me).

I appreciate folk in the US know all about the benefits of unfetterd and even competition - maybe that is why Haliburton seems to be successful in Iraq?

As much as I despise the BBC and their draconian tax used to fund far-left news outlets under the banner of fairness, so what? ITV and Sky are a lot more fair, and they don’t demand your money for it … Channel 4 is a vitriolic left-wing station, but I respect their right to exist and take money from those who choose to listen to their anti-US tirades.

The BBC are a company entering another sector … only in Europe do we have to put successful and popular companies at a disadvantage simply because they create popular services, people don’t have to watch the BBC or use this service, if they do it because its better, these little start-ups deserve no help.

The better product will win, the BBC isn’t a monopoly, the start-ups can make a better product and if the BBC win, so be it …

I hate punishing success …

Even though I’m an ex-BBC employee and a passionate believer in its remit, I have to be honest and say in my opinion the way it is currently run does indeed impact on the wider market and stifles innovation. The most obvious ways it does this is through the money it spends on commissioning from smaller companies (in my opinion it funds the wrong kinds of work, creating a BBC-only service industry) and in keeping good people off the market. The former is the most alarming of the two.

Having said all of that, this is absolutely not where most of these competing services claim the BBC deforms the market. They tend to argue that the BBC takes work away from them and makes it impossible for them to compete. This, frankly, is almost universally total rubbish. The BBC is—like most large organisations—relatively clumsy and inefficient. It is not some agile, creative monster - it’s a relatively sluggish and technologically sluglike entity. It works for the good of the world (or the British) and as such I love it and care for it, but it does so very very slowly.

There are however businesses in the UK who will take any opportunity to claim that the BBC is crippling their ability to do business. Rather than demonstrating what should be obvious—that they can build better things faster—they’d prefer to complain and get in the BBC’s way.

Generally this only results in more wasted money for the license fee payer and a clumsier industry, as the BBC’s efforts are held up, delayed or scrapped. And the rest of the industry in the UK doesn’t tend to take advantage of this lack of speed to catch up, it just wants to get in the way. The same ideology stands with their ‘competitors’ in TV and radio, but there you could argue that there’s a bit more justification. In these territories online, it’s just absurd.

And in the meantime, as someone pointed out above, a whole raft of other companies had been commissioned by the BBC to build the Jam service, so these complaints have done nothing but weakened the web production sector in the UK, cost the license fee payer money and removed funding for a service designed to help children with exams.

The whole thing is, frankly, embarrassing and incredibly angry. I often cannot tell whether I’m more angry with the BBC for being slow and clumsy or with the trusts and companies around them who don’t seem to believe that they’re slow or clumsy enough. Today, I have more of an idea than perhaps ever before.

To comment on the license fee, I don’t agree with paying £130 for Eastenders or any of their prime time programming.

But I understand the need for PSB programming, like educational shows … what I propose is the current license fee is set in a more open and competitive way.

We should be able to choose who gets our money, anybody who has PSB programming should be able to have their name on the ticket, when we buy it - we can choose, if I want to give my money to Five because of some wonderful educational shows … I should be able to, it would also bring accountability to the BBC who have long flushed away our money because their revenue stream is secure.

As for funding for their left-wing news (to be fair, its less biased than Fox and closer to the political centre, but Sky News is too), they can open up a subsription model for those who care for BBC News or Eastenders or put ads on… do whatever they want, but nobody needs to pay for Eastenders.

I am british living in Germany. The BBC is essential for my sanity. If anyone doubts its importance or its vulnerability. I would take them back to the heads that rolled as a result of the Govt pressure to its totally accurate reporting of the way the British Govt misled Parliament and the voters.

In Germany the state run media would not recognise a decent political interview if it tripped over one. These channels are sycophants terrified of any implication of criticism or journalistic investigation.

The point is that Governments always fear and try to limit the power of the media. The media must stay robust and independent even if that means they can be over critical far better that than the opposite.

The BBC charter prohibits it from carrying adverts (although not BBC 24.
overseas ??). The disadvantage is that Govt can exercise control through setting the licence fee - as it is doing in the current round of negotiations.

Even so better that than the masses of commercial “entertainment” channels as exist here in Germany for example - by and large they are dire and dreadful with just a couple of honourable exceptions.

Long live the BBC !

I think this is a very interesting and valid discussion. The trouble is it tends to descend into the pro/anti BBC factions, which potentially obscures the central point of the discussion - is the remit of the BBC in the digital age sufficiently clear or robust? Where should and shouldn’t the BBC be allowed to invest in producing services, and how does that impact the independent market in those areas?

In the case of Jam, the BBC has a well established pedigree and role in the children’s educational content market in the UK. But does that mean it should be providing it as a service at the UK tax payers’ expense, I’m less convinced. I know the BBC claims to have a process (referred to by someone on the video) for vetting whether it should be engaging in different market spaces, but who is this accountable to? Seemingly not to independent regulation, or to the tax payer? Largely it seems to be accountable to itself, and that is what causes concern. In this sense, Jam is definitely the thin end of a rapidly growing wedge.

My personal view is that this is a complex not a simple issue. Services like Jam can add a lot of value in the market, often to parts of the market that have limited choice in reality. That can be a boon, but it also comes at a heavy price - collectively to those funding the BBC, but also in stifling innovation, often in markets where that innovation is desperately needed. I’m sure it impacts venture capital investment in competitive organisations, but it also helps to validate a market space that may spawn better solutions.

Let’s keep the debate about the issue of remit and market impact, not about whether paid advertising is nice to watch … I’m sure we all have a similar answer to that!

DAVID

The American experience seems on par with the Germans (comment #29). There is just so much CRAP on TV now… 500 channels, and nothing worth watching, 9 times out of 10. No wonder the Net is drawing away so much of its former viewership.

btw: Disclosure : I used to run a 3 man start up, building an online product I devised. The BBC was my first customer. When the parent company of my little offshoot baby went down the pan, I was employed by the BBC.

Just a little more perspective

The BBC needs to be an arena for the whole uk media industry - inspired by it.

btw2: Tom Coates++ : well said

@Bob Jones : the point is - there’s no ads on the BBC in the UK.
eg: You watch a movie - start to finish - no breaks. (like HBO?)

Commercial channels are funded by all those annoying interruptions to convince you to buy stuff.

Why not build a television which simply CANNOT receive any BBC content, in any way or form - and see how it sells - and see what the TV License man says. I’ve always been interested to find out

I am a reluctant TV licence payer and very critical of the way the BBC has been allowed to expand its empire online in an almost completely boundaryless way. Its a state monopoly that thrives on abusing its position.

OK, so the various parts of the BBC’s Online empire are conveniently hived off from its core publicly funded TV broadcasting role however the company constantly pleads poverty yet gets funded on the back of the Government threatening non-licence payers with heavy fines and jail sentences and with that kind of comparative advantage - I think Uzbekistan may run a similar system - of course its stifling competion and innovation in markets its being subsidised to dominate with mediocre content.

The BBC has been guaranteed state funding - read public money - for the next 10 years when it should be broken up to level the playing field . I hope the legal action in Europe helps bring about the that inevitable process.

..helps bring about that inevitable outcome quicker. lol

I am a big fan of the work the BBC did. In the UK they took RSS and podcasting mainstream with the work they did to promote it via their various websites and radio stations. The BBC also did a virtual concert in SecondLife which was an excellent introduction to many of the possibilities with SecondLife. None of the commercial stations radio/tv have done the same in the UK.

A similar dispute arose recently with the BBC iPlayer which was due to launch last year but again commercial companies complained but they have not done anything to replace the gap left.

For example Sky Broadband was pulled and ITV and Virgin Media are not doing anything. So we are left with commercial companies promising to do things but failing to deliver and the BBC able to do things but not allowed too.

Sadly due to the shackles placed on the BBC they have lost a lot of talented people to the commercial sector - Tom Coates, Kevin Anderson, Ben Metcalfe etc.

Sadly due to the shackles placed on the BBC we the UK consumer have lost a lot of applications that would have been useful.

David Clark in the Guardian:

“Nations are often described as “imagined communities” in which bonds are forged between large groups of people who never meet. This requires a popular medium through which the national story can be told and understood. At a time when forces of social and ethnic fragmentation are becoming stronger, we need institutions capable of fostering a distinctive and inclusive sense of Britishness. The BBC still does this far better than anyone else.

Veteran foreign correspondent John Simpson, in his book “News from No Man’s Land”:

“Whether you like it or hate it, and most of us often do both at the same time, the BBC is the biggest and most important institution in the cultural life of the United Kingdom, and nowadays it’s an increasingly important one in the rest of the world as well. It has reached this position because it has money to spend, on hiring good people and making good programmes. The source of that money is the licence fee, and without it the BBC would start sinking fast.”

Beware foreigners. This is first and foremost a story about British national identity.

Jeremy said:

The market fails to provide all areas that the public deems to be worth providing for..

This is quite wrong. The market IS the public. They are paying for what they want. Funding the BBC by tax is just substituting what politicians want for what the public want.

Don’t like advertising? Move to a subscription model.

bdb said:

Please explain how the BBC is a “left-liberal” / “leftie” organization. How about substantiating your argument? Please use examples and provide just ONE example of a news source that is more objective

“The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias”, Andrew Marr, former chief political correspondent.

“People who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that [global warming] is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC’s coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago”, Jeremy Paxman, senior current affairs presenter.

Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t think there’s anything wrong in the BBC being left/liberal. Every broadcasting organisation has an editorial line, whether they admit it or not. It’s forcing people to pay for it which is wrong. Particularly when most of the money is coming from the poor while most of the audience are middle class.

Sorry, Ive gotta ask, Mike, is this your alter-ego? http://gigacrunch.com/?p=8

My favorite part: “Arrington reintroduces the British audience to a fellow named Adam Smith; you can actually see the very moment when he drops his GigaBalls on the lecturn.”

Is the BBC stifling start ups or not? Does anyone actually know this?

If the BBC is using technology innovatively and using the private sector, including numerous UK New Media companies, content producers and writers, as well as other companies, including Microsoft UK, then why is this stifling to business.

Many of the experiences and skills brought about by the use of the innovations of the BBC will find their way into innovation by start ups. I speak from direct experience when I say this.

As for the politics surrounding the BBC. It is a well regulated and respected produce of quality programmes and content. Who cares what its ‘political’ slant is on current affairs. If you want pseudo liberal garbage, watch the BBC, if you want right wing garbage watch Fox. Whichever way, its mostly formula.

There is more to the story of course than the ’stifling of business’… but that’s for another thread.

The BBC can provide interesting, innovative thought provoking content that would not be widely available in a market run on purely free market lines (i.e.. entirely dominated by companies with private shareholders). Such a “free market” can be stifling in itself.

But within a broadly free market, the BBC as a publicly funded institution can provide an alternative outlet for quality work and can take certain risks others can’t because of the way its funded and the way its set up. I think its history of quality output speaks for itself.

Hence the BBC is a help to the free market in some ways as I have stated in my previous post.

In this specific case, the facts are that a useful and free educational resource has been pulled because of the narrow mindedness of a few. Not to mention the work for the PRIVATE companies developing the content!

I can’t believe how some of you believe the government can provide for people better than the market. You have been totally brainwashed since birth with this utter crap. Private enterprise is always far better run and more likely to provide what is needed when it is needed.

debates like these are the reason my company created the site in my sig.

BBC puts out some good programming. If they follow this argument, how far will they take it? Who wants to listen to other news when you can hear the BBC, etc?

I am a British expat teaching in Shanghai and the BBC provides me with a window to the world (and China) that the censored local media are not allowed to give me.

The BBC has also done an amazing amount of good for education by offering very high quality content and learning programmes for no cost (license fees excepted). You have to remember that British government schools have very limited funds and there is a big digital divide in the UK so anything that can be done to increase access to excellent learning resources should be welcomed.

I agree with earlier comments that safe guards should have been setup by the UK Government to ensure that the services and content are distinct to avoid hurting other suppliers, but it is up to them to provide affordable content that is compelling for schools and parents to buy and use as an alternative to the BBC.

There have been comments that the BBC is confused about its operational boundaries and strategic direction. I see no such confusion. The BBC is making a transition from a public sector state subsidised broadcaster into a commercial and global independent media empire distributing high quality content through every available channel and format.

I am looking forward to the day that I can subscribe to the IPlayer service and stream recently broadcast tv shows such as Little Britain or Newsnight. I am not asking the British license fee payer to foot the bill for my viewing. I will happily do that myself.

Bishop- Simply quoting the opinions of two prior and/or current employees that the BBC is “left/liberal” does not substantiate the argument any further. I’m still not convinced. The BBC is the most objective news source that I have found. If by, “forcing people to pay”, you mean charging those people that elect to use a public resource (the airwaves), I fail to see the issue. I don’t have a tv, and I consider it a luxury

Josh- There is no silver bullet. Private industry isn’t the answer to everything. Private industries are beholden to the stock holders, and as a stock holder I want increased revenue, nothing else. If the priority is revenue, then the public good takes a backseat.

Come on guys, get in the real world.

At the end of the day it is UK school children whom will suffer as a result of commercial interests shutting down BBC Jam.

How many commercial interests are rushing to provide rich content for Welsh, Gaelic and Irish learners, kids with severe educational needs and kids whose 1st language isn’t english while at the same time providing learning through games and community resources for all abilities.

I wonder how many commercial inteests will go back to the European courts and say that they really can provide an alternative.

As another commentator said ‘its like BUPA complaining to Europe about the UK’s free NHS service.’

This is a sad day for UK school children and a great day for commercial interests no doubt.

Frank

This was a site aimed at children, and Welsh language learners. Private businesses in Wales complained the the BBC had a commercial advantage, and the BBC was putting them out of business. However, there’s not an alternative site available for this age bracket.

Wales is a bilingual nation, and Welsh on the curriculum within schools is compulsory. Thus the market is there. However, now we have a distinct lack of materials for children to learn.

What disturbs me about this, the BBC operating in Wales, as a public body, is legally bound to produce materials in English *and* Welsh. Since there’s plenty of sites promoting the English language (and indeed other minority languages), its interesting that business models are seen to be more important than the Welsh Language Act 1993.

The BBC is a public service broadcaster ffs - and if providing educational material is not providing a public service I don’t know what is… what a shame that some people’s greed has caused this terrific resource to be withdrawn.

If you entrepreneurs who complained are so innovative, I’m sure that you can find another niche to make money.

“Private enterprise is always far better run and more likely to provide what is needed when it is needed.”

So why not let the “customers” decide, rather than running to the EC like a bleating lamb, eh Josh?

good site btw….. LOL!

let us know when you have completed the beta

Wow. That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a while.

http://www.zuneconverter.net

Josh (comment 43): prove it. If the only reason your company can’t succeed is because you are competing with a public service broadcaster, your business proposition wasn’t a good one to start with.

To throw something else into the mix: I’m an entrepreneur. I run two companies which create electronic learning materials, for publishers and the BBC. We have jobs at risk because of this decision, right now.

One of those companies, Spark Learning, was an opponent to Jam before it launched. Since then, we’ve been pragmatic: if it’s here and that’s what’s happening, then let’s work with it and move on. We are now, through our joint venture with the television company Tinopolis, one of Jam’s biggest independent suppliers, and creating stuff that I am enormously proud of and believe in. Also, the material that we are creating just wouldn’t have a business model, and doesn’t threaten educational publishers. I know. I am one.

The media is telling a story of the private sector forcing the BBC into this measure. This misses half of the reality. The BBC is legally obliged to commission half of BBC Jam’s content from private production companies. Often small organisations, these companies are working at the cutting edge of the new media, creating original and highly worthwhile material for Britain’s children - which will be made available to them for free. In the media, “the private sector” has become shorthand for “one particular set of commercial interests”, missing the vital point that one industry is being built while another stutters. We have just finished a ground-breaking resource for totally blind 6-11 year-olds, hosted by Benjamin Zephaniah, to help them learn to read and write using braille. There is nothing like it in the world. It is now possible that this very expensive project may never see the light of day. Until Thursday, we were working on four other similar pieces of work. What’s the point of them being wasted?

“near limitless financial resources”
Hardly.

I support BBC Jam - My son loves it.

This complaint has come from BESA - http://www.besanet.org.uk. The contact details for Dominic Savage (Director General) are besa@besa.org.uk - I have emailed them to complain about their complaint to Europe, and to point out that, as 50% of BBC Jam was commissioned from private companies, he is shooting himself in the foot.

The website has a list of members in the IT sector.

What needs to be said is that the commercial sector has benefited from over £550m. Yes a BILLION DOLLARS of state subsidy in the form of eLearnign Credits to compensate for what the BBC were doing with BBC jam. And the BBC had to spend half of its £150m with the commercial sector.

The BBC jam service was aimed at learners not teachers and it still had lots of exciting content to publish. Some teachers managed to see this at the BETT show earlier in the year and most thought that these resources would be of great benefot to learners.

In addition, the materials were multilingual designed for all of the nations in the UK, there was support for learners with special educational requirements and specific content planned for profoundly deaf and for the blind. The commercial sector won’t produce this content - there is no money to be made in it due to the small market.

The commercial sector through their representive BESA should be hanging its head in shame and not gloating.

If you feel stongly enough about the demise of this service then you should write (or email) the BBC Trust.

BBC Trust Unit, Room 211, 35 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4AA
Telephone 0870 010 3100
trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk

I think a lot of people on here have been misled. BBC stifling startups? In what way are companies such as Espresso and Pearson startups? They are major players in the education software & content market. They make stuff that are generally to be used as classroom teaching aids. BBC jam was (is? will be?) learning aids to be used by kids. At home, on their own. *That* makes the content distinctive straight away.

Personally, I fail to see why besa are now complaining. They weren’t complaining about UK Govt subsidies when it was in e-learning credits. Where income was guaranteed for a few years, with hundred of millions of pounds available. How’s that for a guarnateed income? And why weren’t these companies using that ‘comfort time’ to make sure they could compete, if that is what they do, in a post-jam space?

That is the problem in market-orientated societies such as the UK and (I guess) the USA. The priorities are about profit margins, cash flow and the bottom line. What about the actual market - ie the people who are to use the product? Anti-competitive laws do not protect the consumer, they protect the businesses. As said by many above, the only real losers here, are UK children

There was already a functioning market in elearning for schools before the BBC got involved.

Many companies were already doing innovative things, it’s arguable that the UK government agency for technology (BECTA) and their push for conformance with elearning standards was a barrier to innovation.

What the BBC did is undercut the existing commercial market, so they spent 150m with private companies. That’s on a work for hire basis for those companies rather than a build it once selling it many times basis, as regardless as to how many copies of the content were used the end suppliers only got paid once.

If it was anything like some of the other publicly funded elearning projects I’ve been involved with I suspect the suppliers wouldn’t have made much money anyway as the profit gets eaten up in the overhead of managing a demanding client.

It is simple really. Education is for all, not for those who can afford it. We seem to forget, that as a civilised society this our goal. Can I afford to pay for another online service which provides the same content. The answer doesn’t matter because I bet there are many kids who could have benefited for BBC Jam, but have no access to another alternatives due to cost. Why not save the government a ‘ton of money’ and force parents to pay for all education. That way the free market truly decides!

The BBCs central remit is to educate, inform and entertain. Jam ticks all those boxes. I fail to understand what there is to winge about.
Independent software companies are also involved in Jam. This closure of a useful resource will hurt those indies and waste £76 million of UK license fee payers money. It has been brought about by a few greedy software companies for purely financial reasons. They clearly have no interest in the wellbeing of their target students. Perhaps they could spend their time more constructively writing software better than that provided by BBC Jam which students would prefer to use.
I am disappointed in the BBC trust for not sticking to their guns and keeping the service open. Even if it does eventually re-open after a year or so it will probably be a lame duck shadow of what it could have been.
The bottom line is that every child in the UK has a right to be educated for free. 170,000 users of BBC jam have been denied that right because of a few greedy companies. Is this bureaucratic madness what we want from our precious free market?

Jam’s in-house productions actually outsource most of the build work anyway. They commission work from *small interactive production companies* - incubating small startups, not stifling them as you claim. These small companies rely on having BBC Jam content online to show off as their portfolio. For a small startup, a live portfolio is their absolute lifeblood, but now that the big interactive production companies have ganged up on the BBC and shut the service down, the small companies have _nothing_ to show for themselves. They may well go under.

It’s simply a cynical, political move by large companies which achieves precisely the OPPOSITE of what they claim. It sinks small companies, beats the BBC into submission, and opens up the market for exploitation by large, dominant producers who want to squeeze schools for every penny they can. Nobody who actually works in education respects these companies as a result of this action - the kids are heartbroken, the teachers and educationalists are apalled.

There’s room in this market for everyone, but sadly politicking, control freakery and disgraceful behaviour have won the day. The companies that brought this about should hang their heads in shame.

Was the BBC Jam content really any good?

With the exception of one deeply engaging (but somewhat age-inappropriate) Citizenship game it all looked a bit tired and unoriginal to my untrained eyes.

It struck me as the sort of thing that’s been commonly available on CD for at least a decade and failed to make any interesting use of the online medium except as a means of distribution.

Thank you for your comments on the Citizenship game. I was the producer of the game which was a collaboration between two small independent companies (shameful plug here… milo creative and Adams Trainor).

I’m obviously gutted that Citizen UK (and the whole of Jam for that matter) isn’t live and being enjoyed by users. With almost 2 years of hard work it seems such a waste, particularly as we haven’t come across anything similiar in this subject for children of this age.

Children had a lot of input in the design of the game and all of the issues addressed within the game were raised by children themselves.

Glad that you found the game engaging.