Bizarre logic

Yesterday the BBC announced its vision of the future when it launched its report “Creative Focus”. In the BBC’s own words:

Creative Future has been an extensive cross-media, audience-focussed project involving hundreds of people across the BBC and key external partners.

Its aim - to produce an editorial blueprint for BBC programmes, content and services for the emerging on-demand world over the next BBC Charter period.

This isn't about new services but a fundamental look at the creative challenges ahead with audiences in an on-demand environment that goes beyond current broadcasting models.

All well and good you might think. When you read the details of the press release you find a different story. The logic goes something like this:

1. The future is all about ‘technology’. Multiple platforms, and all of that sort of stuff. Incidentally the BBC has already announced that it wants to have its own search engine and media player so this is a great way of justifying the expenditure.

2. Young people don’t watch much TV. The BBC thinks it is because: “The audiences of tomorrow gets too little of real value from the BBC”. The BBC’s conclusion - it must ‘engage’ with them and reflect their lives better.

3. So in a world that is getting older the BBC decides to focus its attention on the young. Just one sentence in the “Creative Focus” report recognises that the world is aging but then spends the rest of the time saying how it will cater for the young.

This report is a great version of an organisation that knows what it wants to do and then retro-fits the arguments to justify (not very well) its previously made decisions. For non-UK readers, the people who pay for the BBC are its viewers, they don’t have any choice, and the majority are over the age of 50.

I nearly forgot - 95% of the BBC's employees are under the age of 55 years . Dick Stroud