UK Sound TV
February 3, 2007 – 4:28 pmUK Sound TV is a broadband channel set up by Hi8us, the most dynamic media training and production organisation working with young people in England, and Space Studios,. Over the past couple of days I’ve been facilitating a sort of mini lab at the Spread Eagle in Midhurst for the UK Sound team to explore the future of the project.
The content on UK Sound is produced by ‘youth producers’ in their late teens and early twenties living in the east end of London. Mostly they make content about grime music because that’s what interests them. It’s been successful, attracting a lot of hits and downloads from the States as well as local users.
But how does a site like this establish itself as a destination when people can post their content directly to You Tube or Google Video? How does an organisation like Hi8us build it as a sustainable project when their motivation is primarily social rather than commercial? It seems to me that it’s unlikely that it will ever be independent of public sector support but it should not be seen just as r education, training or social inclusion.
Projects like UK Sound are in practice contributing to the debate about the future of public service in digital media. It’s actually the sort of thing that should be funded by the Public Service Publisher whose potential role is being explored by Ofcom.
One Response to “UK Sound TV”
Hmmm. A very cogent and interesting point Frank.
The question of public support for the dissemination of ‘content’ seems to me to be of really crucial importance in the current British media landscape.
By Richard White on Feb 9, 2007