Feasibility Study of a Digital Platform for the delivery of UK ... - BFI

UK FILM COUNCIL
almost certainly be required to generate and sustain interest in the content on offer. This approach would provide limited opportunities to
build a brand and consumer awareness of the availability of the specialised film content as it would merely inject a selection of specialised
movies into a much larger pool of content. In addition, the exposure may devalue the content in later windows of exploitation and would
also negate creation of a more organised platform or channel for the content concerned.
Indicative costs
Again the main costs for a match-maker option are staff and office overheads. The costs associated with content aggregation and audit,
which may be necessary preliminary steps, have already been detailed above.
Set up and manage an independent film platform on the open Internet
Broadband access and recent technological developments mean that the open Internet offers real potential as a means of distribution for
on-demand film content. A number of models are already in place, including the Sky Movies download ‘channel’ and the BBC iMP trial. In
the near term in order to be economically viable, the platform would likely need to utilise a download rather than streaming model and
peer-to-peer (P2P) technology (both Sky and the BBC are utilising a download P2P system), although streaming could be utilised to
transmit a ‘showcase’ channel or selection of promotional on-demand content.
As with several of the other options, a large part of the set-up of an open Internet platform could be outsourced and there are ‘off the
shelf’ platforms that would enable an on-line ‘on-demand’ service to be created relatively quickly and simply for relatively little cost.
Rights management, content aggregation, ingest and encoding would be a necessary pre-cursor to set-up of such a service.
There are many reasons why an open Internet platform represents a potentially compelling option:
• Costs relative to a full-blown broadcast channel are low (there is no requirement for satellite transponder space or spectrum
allocation, for example)
• Once encoded, the content could be easily fed to other broadband distribution platforms and quickly re-purposed for distribution to
‘future’ viewing devices, including mobile devices.
• The broadband environment, community, and user base is likely to be a good ‘fit’ with specialised film.
• The broadband environment is already recognised as an outlet for specialised and challenging film content.
• The service would still potentially fit within the definition of Public Service Publishing (PSP).
• All of the branding opportunities of a traditional channel exist within the broadband space.
By taking this option there are a number of possible downsides, including:
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