Net pundits, ourselves included, who regularly rail against the banality and lowest common denominator stuff that characterises most Web 2.0 content might soon have to eat humble pie. The acclaimed Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in the US, renowned for being an island of high-quality programming in an ocean of mindless, populist drivel has just announced a deal with the pioneering webTV site Joost.
Joost is the brainchild of copyright-crunching Kazaa founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, one time self-proclaimed Internet "outlaws" who have gone straight and taken up permanent residence on the legal side of the net. In other words, poachers who have grown up to become gamekeepers.
The news PBS Joost TV channel will feature episodes of the hugely popular series “History Detectives” and “Scientific American Frontiers” in addition to specials from PBS’ award-winning “Empires” collection.
Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, the executive VP of content strategy and acquisition at Joost says, “PBS’ high-quality, compelling documentaries and series complement the Joost offering and give our viewers an even greater variety of programming to choose from. Documentaries are performing well on Joost, proof that people are consuming long-form programming in addition to our shorter programming, such as comedy, animation, sports and music.”
The only downside to the agreement is that new PBS content will be supported by advertising. On traditional TV, PBS is mercifully without the appalling advertising overload that, in the US, makes watching mainstream free-to air programming such an awful experience.
Concerns are that the new deal with Joost marks a potentially dangerous, perhaps even disastrous, departure from the largely commercial-free format that PBS viewers enjoy and want to see retained.
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