Damian Radcliffe's Blog

Third Sector, 3 March 2009

Government targets for digital inclusion should make charities sit up and listen, says Damian Radcliffe

The Government recently published an interim report on the Digital Britain initiative, its project "to secure the UK's place at the forefront of innovation, investment and quality in the digital and communications industries".

Digital Britain is based on the belief that the digital economy can outperform the rest of the market in terms of providing jobs, developing skills and generating income. The report contains more than 20 recommendations, including eye-catching proposals for "universal broadband connectivity" - getting every household online and using broadband by 2012. There are hurdles to overcome to realise this ambition, not least those of supply (some areas currently can't get broadband at the 2Mbps speed the report recommends in order to upload and download information efficiently) and demand (only 59 per cent of households currently have broadband).

However, the Government clearly feels these obstacles are surmountable, so charities need to consider what this might mean for them. The year 2012 is not that far away. In its simplest sense, the challenge can be broken into three areas: content, visibility and digital literacy skills.

If 100 per cent of homes have broadband, old media consumption will continue to decline. A strong online presence will therefore become even more important than it already is.

It's no use having great content if nobody knows who you are, so make sure people can find you through internet search engines and that your site is easy to navigate. Good branding, design and a recognisable online profile matter if you want your organisation to stand out.

Charities should also ensure that their staff and, in many cases, beneficiaries have the skills and knowledge to benefit from a fully digital Britain. No doubt the BBC, government, schools and others will all play a role in developing these skills, but many people will inevitably be self-taught. Charities should therefore encourage their staff to follow them on a digital journey so that the whole organisation is in a position to understand and benefit from the potential of universal broadband. Those who don't risk being left behind.

George W Bush once asked: "Will the highways on the internet become more few?" That's a difficult one to answer, but the direction of traffic is clear. Where we're going we don't need roads, but it looks like we're all going to need broadband. So buckle up and get ready for the ride.

- Damian Radcliffe is the manager for English regions at Ofcom and writes in a personal capacity

First published here on 1/12/08

 

I'm just back from catching up with some friends in the States, where aside from eating too much, I also managed to spend some time playing around with what some people are already calling the new YouTube; Hulu.

At the moment the site only works in the States, where it allows you to watch clips, TV shows and movies from broadcasters like NBC, Fox and others. It's pretty extensive and catching on fast.

Analysts are predicting a pretty quick upward curve in its usage. In some respects what it offers doesn't strike me as entirely new, US MySpace users have been able to watch episodes of their favourite shows on the social networking site for a while. However, where I found Hulu came up trumps was with its high definition offer, something I'm not sure that MySpace offers.

So, the other Sunday I hooked my laptop up to my friend's wireless home network and streamed a high definition movie which I watched on my 10" screen with their three year old. I forget what I watched, but I know it involved characters that were vegetables and that it looked like a Wallace and Gromit film, but with fewer references to cheese.

The cool thing about it, aside from the quality of the movie (by which I mean the imagery, not the already forgotten story,) was that it was entirely free. Every 10 minutes or so I'd get a 30" advert for something. But, as this constituted much less advertising than I might get through standard US TV watching, I figured this was a good deal.

I then used the service again at a couple of airports to watch some short Family Guy clips (no ads) - again streamed in very good quality (although I don't think that Hulu classed them as HD). Each one was a couple of minutes long and they certainly looked as good as the new high quality streams on the BBC's iPlayer.

Suffice to say I'm already signed up to the potential of super-fast broadband, but the experience brought some of the potential alive to me in a way that simply reading about it cannot / does not.

Does anybody else have a similar experiences, or experiences, from places they've visited that they want to share?

 

First published here on 30/12/08.

Two well know strategists, Robin Foster and Kip Meek (both of whom worked at Ofcom several years ago,) have written an interesting paper for the Social Market Foundation on the future of Public Service Broadcasting (PSB).
 
As with super-fast broadband, the issue of funding is at the cornnerstone of the current debate on the future of PSB. You can find out more about this debate by visiting our PSB blog. In both of these debates the issue of who will pay - and the value of the wider social and economic value of this investment - is never far away. 
 
Ofcom research published in September 2008 suggested that to maintain existing levels of PSB in the UK a total funding requirement of between £330-420m p.a. is needed to sustain public service provision by 2012. By the same token, estimates of the sums needed to deliver a super-fast broadband network across the UK vary from anywhere between £5-30 billion, depending on speeds, deployment technologies, and so on.

With so many demands on the public purse; from banks to hospitals, schools to defence, there's only so much that Government can do and clearly the decision makers will have some tough questions to answer in the near future.
 
Foster and Meek have an interesting take on this, amalgamating the two debates by placing the emphasis on creating high-speed broadband networks, but suggesting that through these networks citizens and consumers would be able to access as much, if not more, PSB content than at present.
 
The document, supported by the BBC and Five, is well worth a read, even if it hasn't attracted as much comment as might have been expected.
 
From my perspective, it does add something new to the mix. Much of the public debate about PSB seems to focus on preserving the current broadcasting ecology, whilst this proposal outlines a different way of doing things. Part of the challenge is that arguably you're not comparing like with like; PSB programming is accessed - and paid for - by almost 100% of homes, whereas existing internet penetration is 68%, with only 58% of homes signed up to broadband.

So, if you were a Minister in these uncertain times, where would you put your money? Would you look to the future by upgrading the existing broadband infrastructure which only two-thirds of the population tend to utilise, or shore up the structure of our current - widely used - PSB broadcasting system?
 
One thing's for sure, it's not an easy decision to make.

First published here on 18/12/08.

There's a risk that we all think super-fast broadband is a "good thing" (copyright Sellar and Yeatman), and so Kate Bevan is right to ask in The Guardian today whether we actually need connections at 50 Mbps or more.

Arguably, based on current consumption patterns the answer for most people is "no".

But if we took that view then we would never see any innovation, and society would risk standing still.

Harry Warner, one of the studio founding Warner brothers, opined in 1927; "who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" Later that year Al Johnson's The Jazz Singer - Hollywood's first talkie - was released and movies changed forever.

But Warner's comments weren't as ridiculous in 1927 as they might seem now. Talking movies were an unproven technology and many people thought they would be little more than a passing fad. In contrast, silent movies were a proven winner with large scale audiences. Now there's only one year-round silent movie cinema that I know of (in LA, and it's fabulous,) whereas every one horse town has a talking movie cinema.

When we talk about the possibilities for super-fast broadband, we're not in too dissimilar a position to Warner et al in the late 20s. We've already speculated about some of the possible uses of super-fast broadband from HD movie downloads to multi-player gaming, but arguably the real innovation will come about as the technology is embedded and becomes established. Consumers will probably start to do things with the technology we haven't considered or thought to be niche. This is exactly what's happened with SMS or many Web 2 applications and will, I'm sure, be equally applicable to a super-fast broadband age.

As they say (repeatedly) in the Field of Dreams, build it and they will come. Who they are, and what they will do with it, of course is another matter altogether...

Third Sector, 27 January 2009

Get your message across with a fast-growing medium, says Ofcom's Damian Radcliffe

Many news outlets - whether commercial radio, TV or the local press - are suffering declining advertising income and increased competition. But community radio is growing quickly.

Since the first permanent station was licensed in November 2005, Ofcom has granted new licences to 187 different groups, all of them not-for-profit and driven by demonstrable social purposes with business plans that ensure their audiences help to run them.

These stations are run by the people for the people. In some cases they offer a small, geographically focused service, such as Forest of Dean Radio; in others, one aimed at a specific minority, such as Glasgow's Asian station, Awaz FM.

For charities, community radio stations offer a number of benefits. The most obvious is that they have small but dedicated audiences. If you need to target a group that mainstream media overlook or cater for only in moderation, stations such as Gaydio - aimed at the gay and lesbian community in Manchester - can bridge the gap.

These stations have as much airtime to fill - but fewer resources to draw on - as their commercial or BBC counterparts; so your interview will probably last longer than it would elsewhere, giving you more time to promote yourself and the chance to explore issues in more depth.

Because community stations broadcast to small target audiences, they are also an ideal training ground for junior spokespeople or staff who've just completed media training courses and need to put their skills into action. This isn't to belittle community radio audiences, but nobody wants to be thrown onto the Today programme without getting a bit of experience first.

Finally, community radio stations' smaller transmission areas make them perfect for local charities - groups that might not want to broadcast on a larger regional or national service. If you're a small community group working in the Wirral, for example, you won't necessarily want to go on BBC Radio Merseyside, and you might find you're geographically too niche for Auntie - but you would be perfect for 7 Waves Community Radio.

No media outlet grants you a god-given right to broadcast coverage, so if you have a community radio station in your area, the usual rules apply. Listen to the station first and tailor your approach so that you offer something that works for both parties. If you can do that, it could be the start of a long and fruitful relationship.

By Damian Radcliffe, manager for the English regions, Ofcom.

By Damian Radcliffe, manager for the English regions at Ofcom. Third Sector, 8 October 2008.

Outside my flat there is a large billboard encouraging customers to sign up for "the mother of all broadbands".

It offers speeds of up to 20 megabits per second and the possibility of 50mbps in the near future - much faster than current connections, which typically operate at about 8mbps. BT recently announced plans to give 10 million homes and businesses speeds of up to 40mbps - five times faster than the current average - and some owners of newly built homes could get up to 100mbps. For the third sector, this presents real opportunities, but also throws up some challenges.

At a time when people are feeling the credit crunch and trying to reduce their carbon footprints, next-generation access could facilitate more home working and improve video conferencing with colleagues. By reducing travel costs, NGA could make flexible working a reality for more people.

I can see the business and consumer benefits of faster broadband connections (for example, multiplayer online gaming and faster downloads for music or TV programmes), but the social applications of this technology remain relatively untried and untested.

A consultation by Ofcom in 2006 recognised this when it said "the majority of the applications and services generally proposed for next-generation access are entertainment services that may result in limited incremental social benefit". The Broadband Stakeholder Group, a UK industry and government forum that looks at broadband-related strategies, echoed this recently when it said that "so far, there is limited evidence of significant social welfare being derived from next-generation access networks or services".

I'd like to see charities give some serious thought to how they can use NGA to innovate. It could be used to facilitate remote health monitoring and consultations, mentoring and befriending schemes, home and community security initiatives, life-long learning programmes and much more.

Because of the high investment costs required to build a UK-wide NGA network, roll-out is likely to happen in phases. Charities therefore need to think about how they could use this technology. They also need effectively to state the case for why they need these higher bandwidths, or whether services can be delivered by improving the reliability and consistency of today's broadband.

If the sector doesn't do this, there's a risk that businesses and certain consumer types will be at the front of the queue, with charities lingering near the back. I'm sure the sector doesn't want to see that happen.

See my entry from 15a Consort Road here. 

Below is an article on how TV consumption is changing, written for the National Media Museum and their lovely thrice yearly publication, Archive.

Damian Radcliffe.pdf

It's quite stat heavy, but I think this is important to avoid soley resorting to anecdote. Data was taken from Ofcom's most recent Communications and Market report.

By Damian Radcliffe, Manager for the English Regions at Ofcom, Third Sector, 23 July 2008

The most controversial TV advert of the year so far must be Heinz's Deli Mayo ad, which received acres of press coverage after it caused more than 200 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority.

The commercial showed a typical family scene, with a wife distributing packed lunches to children and husband. The creative twist was that both husband and wife were played by men, and the advert ended with the working man giving his 'wife' a kiss goodbye. It was this kiss that provoked the ire of audiences and some newspapers, despite the fact that the whole thing was light-hearted. As a result of the complaints, Heinz withdrew the advert one week into its scheduled five-week run.

What lessons can charities learn from this? Oscar Wilde famously said that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about - and this advert certainly got people talking. Whatever the merits or flaws of the advert itself, there's no doubt that it has taken the Heinz brand to a wider audience than TV alone could have.

This extra publicity was generated simply by being able to shock, or stir into action, a very small audience; something the NSPCC and Shelter have also managed to do successfully in recent years, thus taking their campaigns to a wider audience.

Of course, expensive, high-quality TV adverts are something that many charities can't afford. But the Heinz case has shown that you don't need to buy TV advertising space to reach a large audience. Online, the most watched version of the advert on video-sharing website YouTube has had 250,000 views, with many other versions having been seen more than 100,000 times each. None of this online distribution cost Heinz a penny - it wasn't even responsible for it.

Charities can also use the web to distribute creative content beyond - or even instead of - the broadcast. Leonard Cheshire Disability did this successfully with its Creature Discomforts advertising campaign, which featured a series of animated characters designed by the company behind Wallace & Gromit.

By using the web rather than expensive TV slots to reach audiences, charities can spend more of their budgets - whatever size they may be - on making the best possible ads, and a lot less money on getting them to eyeballs. It's a fairly new model, but it's one that we're only going to see more of.

Peckham Rye in the snow yesterday... by the evening it had all melted and it was as if it had never happened.