Folks, it’s always interesting to see how the public — or selected portions of the public — react to proposals for change in the way they consume television. Two recent examples:

– Our very own Luke Gibbs recently wrote a piece for The Register in which he suggested that privatisation of the BBC would be beneficial for British society. He wrote:

‘But one thing is sure: a privatised BBC would overnight become one of the biggest and most powerful global media and entertainment companies in the world.

The assets are impressive. There’s the infrastructure - a global network of production and distribution facilities. Then there’s the real estate - some of the choicest cuts of property in Central London and beyond. There’s the archive itself - seventy years of original programming that could, in itself, keep some viewers happy for another seventy years. And then there’s the most valuable of all of the assets - the brand.’

The reaction? Almost completely negative…

One commenter wrote: ‘Aha. The real reason for your privatisation wet dream emerges. The vultures are circling (with due apologies to El Reg) and waiting to pick the poor old BBC’s carcass clean.’

And that was one of the more polite comments!

– Another recent example:

Sky’s fairly innocuous effort to switch its DTT offering over to a more advanced pay offering (the Picnic project) has met with practically zero support from respondents to the Ofcom consultation. A few nuggets of commentary:

‘This is a dangerous proposal designed to expand Sky’s power over television. It is a red herring that it increases competition. The size of Sky would probably remove all competition in paytv bar cable. I am heartily against this greedy and selfish proposal by Sky.’ - Douglas Potter

‘I don’t want to buy satelite because I cannot afford the subscriptions. This is why freeview is an excellent choice for pensioners. If freeview fails, due to lack of channels, then will we all need to invest in a dish and a subscription to Sky? Is this what they are trying to do?’ - Edwin Asher

‘Keep FreeView FREE.’ - John Ward

* * *

Onward and upward…