Publishing in the Knowledge Economy - DTI Home Page

Publishing in the knowledge economy
Issues for competitiveness
companies, but also find themselves in
competition with software suppliers and systems
integrators. It is a path which has also been
taken by TSO, which manages information and
even services the clients of other organisations.
As business magazine and directory
publishers expand their specialised offerings
into higher value areas via the Internet, they
also begin to compete more directly with the
general business information vendors, although
they also use them as a reselling channel.
17.2.2 Competition from publicly
funded bodies
Current financial pressures on publishing with
the fall in advertising revenue and the hangover
from the end of the technology and telecoms
booms have thrown the online activities of both
the BBC and government/EU into sharp relief,
as they are able to continue investing. In
addition, concern continues on the level of cross
promotion by the BBC on its free to air services.
Central and local government and the EU are
naturally keen to use the new platforms as a
means of reaching the citizen with information
and setting up cost-effective ways for people to
transact business with government departments
such as filing tax returns, obtaining driving
licences, etc. Some publishers see
governments overstepping the mark into
value-added publishing.
Our interviews revealed a degree of anger
and mistrust at perceived unfair competition
from both the government and EU, and also the
BBC. The sectors affected differed. Government
publishing activities were seen as most
threatening by business to business magazine
and directory publishers and local newspapers,
who fear the impact of central and local
government and NHS electronic publishing
activities on their advertising and sales
revenues. Publishers of specialist health and
municipal publications are particularly worried,
with local newspapers reporting concern but
also suggesting that a partnership model with
local public bodies is working.
Educational publishers were most upset by
the implications of the Government’s approach
to using the BBC to deliver the online
curriculum. There were a number of strands
to this. First of all, publishers perceive the
Government as downgrading the importance
of books and other printed material in the
classroom, and of being unaware of the degree
to which the efficacy of the online delivery of
education varies considerably by educational
subject. Secondly, they questioned the ‘topdown’
monolithic approach to the online
curriculum, which marginalises the role of
individual teachers in choosing material from
specialist publishers. Thirdly, they were very
angry at what is seen as ‘empire-building’ by
the BBC.
The initiatives taken by the Government to
create a digital curriculum in partnership
between the Government, commercial industry
and the BBC are well-intentioned. However, the
proposed implementation highlights many of
the problems of publishers operating in a
commercial environment at the same time as a
public broadcaster whose funding from public
funds can impinge on commercial activities. In
our survey, 18% of respondents said that they
have not proceeded with a project because of
the activities of the BBC.
This stems from a basic distrust among
publishers of the BBC activities and its tendency
to use ‘editorial control’ and ‘brand protection’
as major arguments for selecting publishing
suppliers when it is offering tenders. Despite
there being very strict rules in place governing
anti-competitive activity, the actions of the BBC
in practice, in particular the exclusive
relationship between the BBC and BBC
Worldwide, have given rise to tremendous
distrust among publishers as to its motives.
Publishers generally were also concerned
at the degree to which the BBC may now be
stifling the nascent online publishing
environment by its massive investment in the
medium, although there was also
acknowledgement that it had helped to bring
a wider audience to the Internet. As one of our
interviewees said:
114