The Global Implications Of The BBCs Streaming Strategy

Yesterday the BBC’s Director General Tony Hall laid out a vision for the future of the BBC (for an excellent take on this see the blog post from MIDiA’s video analyst Tim Mulligan, and yes the name may look familiar, he’s my brother!).  The BBC has long played a crucial innovation role in the digital content economy but it has yet to carve out a convincing role for itself in online music.  It has built up a compelling YouTube content offering and it has pursued a streaming coexistence strategy with its innovative Playlister initiative but the bigger play has yet to be made.  That looks set to change, with the announcement that the BBC is planning to launch a ‘New Music Discovery Service’, which would make the 50,000 tracks broadcast by the BBC every month available to stream for a limited period.  The initiative is interesting in itself…