The Guardian has a good op-ed piece on the BBC and the failure of their plans to release much of their content for free use by the British public, who paid for the content to be produced.

So the question is, why are the creative industries in the UK allowed to take public money, without fulfilling the obligation to deliver publicly accessible value? Why is this even an option? We have paid for it, now let us use it.

The negotiation should be simple: no public rights, no public money.

The ABC here has been experimenting with podcasts: Radio National in particular has some great programming available in podcast form. TripleJ also have some great stuff available

However, I was distressed by a recent episode of The Science Show.

The only content on the site is this:

Summary

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of his miraculous year, today's Science Show is a special program on Albert Einstein, produced by Pauline Newman.

Program Transcript

For copyright reasons, we are unable to provide a transcript of this program. It cannot be made available as a podcast, but audio streaming will be available for one month from the date of broadcast.

What applies to the BBC applies equally here: if there are no public rights, there should be no public money.

I'm sorry Aunty. In general, you're doing a fantastic job. I'd go so far as to say that you're at least equalling what the BBC are making available - in fact, I think you're doing a lot better. Please don't let this thing happen again, ever.

(Incidentally, I've been listening to Mark Kermode's film reviews and I'm loving them, they're absolutely fantastic).