What is it they say? Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer? Or what about if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em?
Maybe it was just a slow news day or something but when YouView released the list of their first round of ‘content partners’ last week there was a rush of OMGs across the Tweet-a-verse when it emerged that right in the middle of the list was one BSkyB. THE BSkyB – the right arm of the Murdoch News Int. evil empire. Here, in bed with the likes of the BBC and all good things Public. (side thread: name 2 good things that are Public – I came up with the library system and then struggled….)
The shock, awe and horror – to read some blogs you’d think Up had become Down, Right, Left and the UK Conservative Party teaming up with the Liberal Democrats in some weird coalition to run the country, how crazy would that be, I can’t just…..oh wait.
But really why is this such as surprise? Because when YouView originally proposed BSkyB actually fought it back in the day? Come on now, if it wasn’t for some heavy hitting opposition to something as far reaching (in the UK) as YouView then who knows what they would have come up with. Balance is key to innovation – the Ying, the Yang.
However that’s not the real reason to have expected this ‘partnership’ - here are 3 other reasons to consider.
- YouView is just FreeView 2.0 and last time I checked Sky broadcasts its channel Sky3 over Freeview. Sky has a vested interest in getting YouView off the ground.
- By keeping their enemy closer Sky can gain access to an incredibly deep knowledge well of how to bring broadcast media over the IP wire into the home. All at the public’s purse expense – all that can be filtered back into their own commercial Sky Anytime initiative.
- Not Content, but the Content OWNER, is king in today’s realm. Sky has very lucrative and exclusive content rights deals with US studios and popular TV brands. Getting onto the next generation platform that can open a distribution to channels to more than 7M UK homes it doesn’t already control is a deal too good to pass up.
So no don’t be surprised that perceived enemies are shacking up together. Adobe is now creating Apple compatible code, David Cameron and Nick Clegg no longer have any difference in their manifestos and agendas, Bacon and Ice Cream comes together (at last!)…. no this should be no surprise at all.
– Cameron Church