Digital Distribution: Stephen Hill responds

Stephen Hill has published his thoughts on the working paper issued by the Digital Distribution Consortium. He finds flaws in the plan, as well as the thinking that went into it.

His critique is excellent, so you should read it all, but I’ll pull a few highlights: first, the DDC model, which is weighted toward advertising support, is based on the concept of keeping most content free. The DDC does allow for paid access to specialized tiers of content, but Stephen notes that the DDC has a prejudice against charging for content, and he believes that level of dependence on advertising could change the nature of public media.

Stephen makes a number of other interesting comments about certain DDC assumptions – competence at local stations to use the resources properly, and we’re under-estimating the resources need to vet incoming content for quality.

His document advances the discussion, and we need to give careful thought to every one of his points.

If you’ve not read the DDC overview document yet, please download it here. (pdf)