So, farewell then BBC Jam
The BBC Trustees have shown their teeth, and the first casualty is their digital curriculum service, BBC Jam. A fair decision, methinks.
Am I biased? Yes, completely - we have a fantastic digital learning business, Learnthings. It is the result of spectacular creative effort and long term investment - and also a lot of agonising since day one about ‘what impact is the BBC going to have on this market?’.
I can only think how many others will have either walked away from this sector thinking likewise.
It’s always been an interesting area this one - at one level, yes you would imagine the BBC and online education might go together neatly. And Bitesize was pioneering in its time. But, there is a private sector out there. That sector is eager and willing to produce high quality digital educational content (as it has produced non-digital material in the past) - which schools are willing to pay for.
£150m of investment into a BBC service was going to distort a market, and certainly not make it. It will now be fascinating, to say the least, to see what happens.
Of course, there is always the chance that despite the considerable sums being spent on BBC Jam, it just wasn’t going to be that good….
Anon wrote:
I was talking to some BBC online people. They were saying that their strategy’s going to be far fewer websites, more automation, less discussion hosted on their own site, more audience research to figure out what to spend the time on. They singled out Bitesize as something like CBeebies that has such amazing reach among its target audience that local MPs would be afraid of shutting it down as they might lose votes. I don’t think it’s going anywhere.
Posted on 15-Mar-07 at 9:58 am | Permalink
Richard S wrote:
Actually, it was pretty good Simon, having seen it. And of course from within the dark citadel (otherwise known as BBC Media Centre) it was seen as a natural extension of hat we’ve done in education for years, and was given momentum by the DCMS following the last Charter agreement.
But times and attitudes move on. It’s suspended, so not dead yet, but definitely on life support.
Posted on 18-Mar-07 at 11:01 am | Permalink
pengpeng wrote:
pandora style beads
Posted on 30-Jun-10 at 1:26 am | Permalink