[BNM] (ot) BBC redesign competition

[Tom Dussek]

>Media Ark? what's that?

It was a Grand Scheme by the BBC to start a commercial new media design 
consultancy; a profit-making, commercial entity, rather like BBC Worldwide. 
Except of course most real commercial companies aren't bankrolled by the 
government and the public, and suffer actual consequences if things go 
wrong. Of course, it was staffed by a cast of hundreds of Beeb drones (all 
projects require at least 30 people, don't they?) and was launched in a 
blaze of (free) publicity. Beeb competition blurb states that they aren't 
allowed to take more than 10% (or something) of the market, otherwise their 
clearly unfair position would skew the marketplace. The co I worked for lost 
a bid for an idTV channel to MediaArc, and it was one of only 2 idTV 
projects that year. So that'll be the BBC taking 50% of the market, 
then..... Interestingly, the reason we lost it was although MediaArc were 
about 4 times the cost, the BBC 'brand' and supposed expertise gave the 
large blue chip in question a sense of security and confidence. I can only 
imagine that the board of said company went to Dixons for 'expert advice 
from trained advisors'.

As I understand it, MediaArc is now a dead turd wallowing in the effluvia of 
history, along with other great bloated, Ye-Olde-Ways obsessed morons like 
Peter Kindersley. W*nkers.

Tom Dussek