Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
The BBC says it is drawing up plans for a plug-in gadget that will turn MP3 players into digital radios. But why does is not leave the job to the consumer electronics industry?
The news was 'reported' on the BBC's own news website on Friday 11 August, but in the form of a normal news item rather than an official announcement. It quoted an unnamed BBC spokesman saying the broadcaster was carrying out feasibility studies to see how easy it would be to make and market the clip-on gadget and also looking at the design of the product and what it would do. A version for a mobile phone was also mooted.
"We have a duty to make sure digital radio is relevant and clearly portable MP3 players are a massive area of growth...It's important for to us to make sure that people can listen to digital radio on their own terms," a BBC spokesman was quoted saying.
Fine sentiments, but you would think that if there was an opportunity for a new personal music device someone in the massively competitive MP3 music player market would be on to it without a broadcaster, for whom such things are hardly core business, needing to get into the market.
The report said plans were at an early stage, that no firm details for the capabilities of the gadget or how much it will cost had been set down and that was no timetable for when it might appear.
Nor would the spokesman name potential partners, but dismissed as "pure speculation" the suggestion that Apple was involved.
Maybe it's the classic example of vapourware: the BBC thinks there should be such a device on the market to expand the digital radio audience to the 'iPod generation' and hopes that, by stirring the pot, it might prompt industry to come up with a suitable devices or devices without the BBC having to do anything further.
David Bass
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