The BBC is embracing the internet like never before. Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear has now started a devoted YouTube channel. On the other hand, the music industry still seems to be having trouble adjusting to the need to promote itself online. For example, U2 insisted that YouTube remove low quality music recorded by a fan on a mobile phone.The BBC's award winning car show, Top Gear has launched a dedicated YouTube content channel aimed at viewers outside the UK. Viewers in the UK can currently see the full shows online on the BBC's iPlayer.
The channel will show all of the popular and often bizarre stunts that presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May get up to and, judging by the success of the series overall, is likely to prove popular worldwide. A search for "Top Gear" on YouTube shows there are already over 52,000 Top Gear videos posted unofficially by fans on the site. Another 264, high quality, official Top Gear videos have just been added to that.
The show is already one of the biggest earning shows for the BBC throughout the world and embracing online video in this way is likely to create demand for the show in countries where it is not yet shown on conventional television, further boosting the BBC's ability to sell the show abroad.
When it comes to promoting itself on the web, the BBC has been uniquely forward thinking in British Television. For what was once a very stuffy and old fashioned organisation, the BBC has put huge resources into projects like the popular iPlayer online video player and is embracing the ability to promote itself abroad using outlets such as YouTube.
Rock and Roll, it would seem, is still struggling with this concept. U2 have recently had poorly recorded clips of some of their new tracks removed from YouTube due to "copyright violations".
A fan of the Irish band recorded the tunes on a mobile phone when they were played loudly at singer Bono's holiday villa on the French Riviera. The Dutch fan then uploaded them to YouTube before bragging about it on a U2 fan site.
The band are officially said to be unconcerned about the leak but manager Paul McGuinness has previously complained about Internet Service Providers profiting from music piracy. McGuinness has been criticised in some circles for failing to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the internet to promote his band.
There's an obvious irony that such a bastion of tradition as the BBC should be embracing the internet at a time when the music industry - which was previously thought of as progressive - has been unable to accept that if you can't beat them, you'd better join them.
