While BBC Worldwide’s (BBCW) £100m purchase of a majority shareholding in Lonely Planet (LP) may seem to have nothing to do with education, we see direct parallels to the BBC jam fiasco.

The first query is why has BBCW, which quit book publishing, now decided to leap back in? More importantly, will this deal distort the market? This is something the BBC’s Charter renewal promised not to do and was a direct reason for the termination of BBC jam.

According to an article in The Guardian, BBCW plan to put all of LP’s content online for free. If true, it’s something few if any for-profit publishers would consider or be financially able to do – therefore a market distortion is inevitable. Media pundits may argue that making all content online free is inevitable, but that depends on having an advertising model, something books don’t have, although oddly in the early 1950s most cheap paperbacks actually had advertisements. Also if this theory is correct, then taken to its logical conclusion in education, this would see online educational content (like BBC jam) being free, but delivered using a business model based on advertising/sponsorship/e-commerce, etc.

The BBCW/LP looks and smells like BBC jam II, and we think that guidebook publishers’ reaction will be similar to that of educational software developers. Unfortunately, while threats of EU intervention scared the government and BBC Trust into canning BBC jam, we doubt they will be as swayed by complaints about travel guides.

www.lonelyplanet.com
www.bbcworldwide.com