Such true words…it gets harder every day…so many people start to write and there are obv some good in that big pool. You have to write something really particularly to get some attention.

Be good if you could also post this on the TSB’s connect site in the Convergence Theme group here:
https://ktn.innovateuk.org/web/convergence

I agree the term ‘convergence’ is not always helpful because it means something different to well just about everyone who might use it.

There is iPlayer type convergence telly on the Internet and there is C4/Mat Locke type convergence – trad broadcasters bringing their skills to interactive and games and and and

I think the interesting bit of convergence is that of app and content so they are the same highly focussed thing and the context provided by the social and positioning technologies creates semantic meaning which makes the apps seem much smarter than they are. Pocket universe is a great example of this.

It’s great that you are tackling this issue in such an open and direct way. You make a strong case that the Public Service Broadcasters are missing a trick in not adopting a real cross platform approach to content creation, as opposed to a TV centred approach. However, there is a genuine difficulty in comparing PBS in America to the situation facing the BBC, as you yourself point out. The former adopted its online / multiplatform strategy out of survival necessity, whereas the BBC defends its funding and market position by reference to TV / radio audience figures. As it should in my opinion. If they abandon this, they give ground to their commercial rivals, like Sky, who would happily occupy the territory vacated.

What I feel may be missing from your blog is a killer argument about why the leadership teams at the BBC, and perhaps more importantly C4, (arguably in a weaker position, more like PBS?) should adopt the strategy you advocate. What could they expect a coherent cross-platform approach to content creation to deliver now, as well as in the short term, defined in audience share and numbers terms? The timeframe is important here, because as we know, in the medium and long terms, the current Boards, Executives and Commissioning Editors leave and these issues become someone else’s problem. But in the short term, who wants to appear to be the Exec giving up the struggle for traditional audience share in favour of the illusive long tail? So, the old sales adage, ‘talk to the customer in a language they understand’, is relevant here. Everyone accepts that in the future content will have to be created for consumption across multiple platforms. But can we prove the cross platform proposition would help mainstream broadcasters protect, or even better, grow audiences now?