Â鶹Éç

Are we heading for programmes with no start and end time, only user-selected unscheduled material? And if the big and expensive infrastructure involved in transmitting a TV or radio network is likely to be replaced and absorbed into Internet-based delivery of sound and pictures, as I speculated in the last post, then what are the implications for a global network like the Â鶹Éç World Service?

The brand is strong - if we keep trying to do our job as well as possible. Despite the problems of the domestic Â鶹Éç with dodgy phone-in quizzes and the name of the most people still trust the Â鶹Éç. Internationally, despite some concerns over our impartiality on , we are still lucky and privileged to have a worldwide reputation for objectivity and comprehensive coverage.

The question is, how to get the brand into the places where it will continue to grow and not just rest on ancient laurels.

Ambitious adoption of all available technology is the answer that's been chosen for the domestic market - including the sometimes strategy of using viewers' own pictures and reports without comprehensive checking. (My link is to a spoof, not one that caught us.)

In the UK, it's likely that enough people will be developing their access to new technologies at a similar rate to make this feasible. Broadband internet is on its way to being universal across the UK, either by wire or increasingly by indoor WiFi and, sooner rather than later, area-wide WiMax.

But for an international service like ours, with some listeners whose only real news comes from the Â鶹Éç, the challenge is how to match the old with the new during a transition period that could take years, even decades. In the end, the Internet is so useful it will spread like electricity. But for the time being, the Â鶹Éç's global services must continue to provide broadcast scheduled programmes while developing content that can be selected and downloaded for those with more modern equipment - mobile phones with Internet access, for example.

The key is in the content and its promotion. If we promote the access points strongly enough, and if the subjects are interesting enough, then people will come. If they can find out how to listen to broadcast frequencies or get onto a website or download site, they will try.

The Â鶹Éç has not been very good at promoting itself in the past - there wasn't anything like the Â鶹Éç World Service and we expected people to know that.

Now we can't be sure they know where to find us. So we have to do more to get the access information across.

Luckily, that and making good material is all we have to do - unlike the commercial broadcasters who have to find ways of making money out of these unpredictable changes.

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