Quotes of the Day

Anyone who missed the first series of the BBC's comic classic The Office can either wait for a rerun, buy the DVD for €18.50 or break the rules and burn a copy from a friend. But BBC Director General Greg Dyke wants to offer another choice: log on at www.bbc.co.uk, pick the episode you fancy and watch it for free on your computer. That tantalizing prospect was raised by Dyke's announcement at the Edinburgh TV Festival in August: the Corporation is planning a digital Creative Archive that would make what he calls "the best television library in the world" available online — a service, Dyke says, the BBC's charter compels it to provide to all U.K. citizens.

The archive will allow everything for which the BBC owns rights — from news to sport to costume drama — to be downloaded and used for noncommercial purposes. After all, said Dyke, "the people of Britain have paid for it and our role should be to help them use it." Initially, he envisages worthy uses like schoolchildren downloading documentary footage for their multimedia homework projects. But although he offered no launch date or technical details, the Creative Archive might also be seen as a play by the BBC to position itself as a major force in global broadband TV.

Media giants and telecom companies are still trying to figure out how to exploit the new markets offered by the shift to broadband. The American TiVo system, for example, lets viewers download and watch only those programs they choose — minus the advertisements. And that's a problem for commercial broadcasters. The BBC, of course, doesn't run ads inside the U.K. anyway, so by putting a toe in the water of online delivery it can get on with digitizing its content while the market decides how it wants delivery.

The technology itself should be a snap — server space just gets cheaper, and the number of broadband homes in the U.S. and Europe will quadruple to 122 million by 2007, according to media research firm Screen Digest. As for how to make money out of its library, the BBC charter says nothing about having to give the stuff away overseas. So while U.K. Web viewers will be able to watch for free, BBC lovers abroad may have to reach for their credit cards. "The government's sure to force them to do this," says Peter White of Rethink Research, a U.K.-based digital media research company. White thinks a global broadband audience could eventually even eliminate the BBC's need for license-fee funding.

In his speech, Dyke admitted that commercial companies had pioneered the first phase of the digital revolution. But the BBC, he vowed, would drive a second phase that "will be more about public than private value." Says White: the BBC is "only just beginning to realize how commercially valuable they are."

• MICHAEL BRUNTON
• The Beeb and broadband