My media consumption
- I wake up listening to Today on BBC Radio 4.
- Waiting for the train, I catch up on my RSS feeds through SpeeedReader [sic] on my phone, which syncs to my Google Reader account. I subscribe to about 40 feeds, business and pleasure, split into categories.
- On the train, I read whatever book I have on the go. These are normally borrowed from friends, gifts, or from Westminster Library, which I walk past twice daily.
- To keep up to speed during at work, I dip in and out of BBC News Online, Google Reader and Google Finance UK.
- At home I watch Freeview (live or recorded on my Media Center PC) or a DVD from the free DVD library I established at work.
- If I’m doing the dishes, I’ll listen to more Radio 4, unless it’s The Archers. I dislike The Archers because I cannot commit to anything approaching every episode and I struggle to remember (or care) which character is having which crisis.
- I don’t drive during the week. At weekends, I drive listening to Radio 4 (Friday night and Saturday) or a music station (local commercial or Radio 1) on Sundays. The same radio attention split applies to weekend running.
- If I am working or studying at home, I’ll normally have earphones plugged in to a feed from Last.fm, a service I adore.
- For some reason, doing DIY makes me want to listen to the type of cabbie talk-radio you find on LBC and BBC London.
- At night, I go to sleep with Kai Rysdall on American Public Media’s Marketplace podcast (thankfully, my wife approves).
My media consumption keeps me fully up to speed of everything that interests and entertains me. The quality of much of this media is exceptional. Today, Marketplace, Marginal Revolution and Last.fm stand out especially.
Why do I mention all of this? Well, because I find it amazing that, aside from the TV Licence, I pay nothing for any of this media.
I won’t even get into the music side but much of this is clearly not sustainable. Newspapers give their content away for free online, whilst their paid-for dead-tree circulations and ad revenues fall.
We are still in the age of insidious cross-subsidisation in the online world. Yes the costs of distributing online are lower – but reporters, editors, legal teams, developers and hosting are not free.
I think some of the web giants have got a lot to answer for here, using their dominance in search to control the flow of other people’s intellectual property. It also gives everyone the impression that online everything is and should be free. This fiction needs to be addressed you don’t get owt for nowt.
The BBC may be funded by a tax – but at least its a business model.