It’s here at last – the 245-page report setting out the Government’s vision for the communications industry in the 21st century. Fundamentally it deals with providing broadband for all – bridging the digital divide – and securing the future of public service broadcasting in this country.

The proposals on broadband seem fair enough. People need access to it for all kinds of reasons these days and it seems unfair to prejudice people because of their postcode. Even though the speeds being discussed are hardly likely to send most consumers rushing to watch on-line television channels.

But I can’t say the same for the rest. Having spent several years working at the BBC I’d be the first to make my many moans and complaints heard. But I’d also be quick to recognise that the BBC is a world-renowned centre for excellence. I’ve worked in a multitude of different markets and nowhere have I found a craft base to compare with the Beeb.

And surprisingly I also think it provides excellent value for money. Now, granted, if we were starting from here we probably wouldn’t re-invent a tax funded monolith like the BBC. But we aren’t starting from here and I think tinkering with it now will set a dangerous precedent for years to come.

But that’s not my main gripe with ‘Digital Britain’. What bothers me is the unimaginative approach to the current funding crisis. Instead of looking creatively at future models all we’re really doing is looking backwards at a tax/revenue model. And this I think has two main consequences. It creates a dependency model for news providers. If there’s 130 million pounds worth of BBC revenue up for grabs that beats having to work it out for yourself.

And critically because they’re not paying directly for the services provided it also takes consumer choice out of the equation. Instead of the Government paying for a service regardless of need shouldn’t we be looking at demand driven models. Surely one thing we know about the digital age is that a proliferation of channels doesn’t necessarily mean more choice.

So two cheers for the report in terms of infrastructure – or as the Lord Carter would say the ‘pipes’. But I would have loved to see some more creative commercial thinking with regard to news provision. Mind you I suspect we’re going to see many months of ‘consultation’ before any of this truly sees the light of day.

I’m in Washington at the moment and all the talk is about green shoots. Like in London everyone is keen to put the bad news behind us and move on and listening to Chief Executives from all walks of like you’d think it had never happened. The credit crunch is just a blip.

But it’s not that easy is it? For one thing what about unemployment? The number of people out of work continues to rise. It’s all right calling it a lagging indicator but what good is that to someone out of work now. What good is that to millions of families throughout the western world without incomes?

And what about debt? Sure the downturn isn’t as bad as it was. But that’s hardly surprising given the amount of government money thrown at it. Just this week President Obama admitted that the US Government was just plain out of cash when it came to bailouts.

Which brings me on to local authorities – city governments in all the major countries. In many ways the recession has re-defined the roles of local government. People are looking to councils for leadership in an unprecedented manner. Councils are now getting involved in building homes, lending money and providing jobs to their communities. It’s leading to a whole new relationship with constituents. Another area where this is happening is communications. Given the explosion in the use of the internet and the demise of the local newspapers councils are at the heart of a completely new way of civic engagement.

And there’s the rub. These changes have been brought about because of need, not choice. People need help with homes and jobs and they’re turning to the council for that. And yet the various government bailouts have burdened us with unprecedented levels of debt. So the next few years are bound to see heavy spending curbs coming from central government just when the need is at its greatest. Which is going to force on councils not just new ways of working but new economic models to support them as well.

Two bits of news caught my eye this week. One was the depth of Martin Sorrell’s bath and the other was the forward order book for Pace Microelectronics. You might think these have nothing much in common, but bear with me.

Lets start with Mr. Sorrell’s bath. He’s well known for his ability to judge the market and has just revised his forecast for 2009. Rather than predicting a flat year Mr. Sorrell thinks his revenues will actually fall before they pick up in 2010.

And what about Pace Microelectronics. Well apparently they are seeing quite a demand for the new breed of broadband set top boxes. It would seem convergence is finally with us but perhaps not in the way that many predicted.

Both of these events are significant. But taken together I think they tell us a lot about the future for broadcasting in this country. To start with the loss of advertising puts a big hole in the business plan of most television channels – be they on-line or not. There simply isn’t enough advertising to go round and the idea that literally thousands of channels will be funded in this way is absurd.

And what about Pace? Well that’s interesting too. Because in my mind it finally signifies true convergence. As speeds increase more and more television will be delivered via broadband. That much we knew. But I don’t think the final destination will be a computer screen. It’s ironic really because the main beneficiary of the new technology will be the humble television set.

Which makes it all the more fascinating for folks like us. We have unlimited opportunities and can now bring a tremendous array of great content right to the viewers living room. But apart from the good old license fee the truth of the matter is we have no real idea of how to pay for it!

So the G20 summit is finally over. The Heads of State have come and gone. The protestors have had their say and another country has been entirely won over by Mr and Mrs Obama.

And the headlines have been pretty complimentary. Over a trillion dollars has been pledged and wise heads are saying that this marks the turning point for the global economy.

But look a little deeper. I’m not arguing here about the figures. I don’t know if these are old pledges or new. I don’t know if the regulation is tight enough and I don’t know if even a trillion dollars will re-vitalise world trade. But I doubt anyone else does either.

No, I think we need to look at the human cost of this recession. The thousands of firms going out of business and the millions of  people losing their jobs and in many cases their homes as well. And mainly, though not entirely, because of greed and arrogance. And it goes beyond the unemployment figures themselves. In America for example millions of people are on the breadline though they remain in part-time employment – too proud to accept State aid.

So when will we start to see an end to this recession if not following the efforts of the G20? That bit is simple. When we see real values return to corporations – both financial and otherwise – and when success is measured in real profits rather than financial engineering. And when our best and brightest recognise the value of earning an honest living.

There’s no doubt these are tough times for the media industry. Advertising revenue for both newspapers and television companies is substantially down with forecasts of a 20% reduction in one year is common.

In truth it is hard for these companies to survive and we’re witnessing both a haemorrhaging of jobs and significant closures of titles. And bizarrely we’re all able to watch this play out on the new media that was in line to save these venerable organisations. Employees can be seen blogging and twittering away on their last days at work.

And the cause of all this isn’t difficult to see. Despite the cuts the cost bases of these traditional media houses are too high. On-line advertising just hasn’t filled the gap caused by the decline in revenues and people simply don’t want to pay for news – be it on or off-line. And despite what the clever people tell you a ‘free’ economic model is never going to pay the bills.

But there’s an underlying issue here that goes far beyond this recession. And if we’re going to be honest with ourselves it needs to be addressed if we’re going to come out of it. Is the industry we work for meeting the needs of the audiences it serves?

The danger here is that our major media outlets are driven more by their cost models than the needs of their constituents. We’re too keen to distribute what we want to produce rather than what people will pay to receive.

And there lies the rub. Interestingly all our research shows that people – both personally and professionally – have a much greater need to communicate than they did before. And if we actually listen hard and work to meet that need then the economic model will follow.

Examples aren’t hard to find from iTunes through to journal subscriptions people will pay for what matters to them. So lets put our efforts into making sure that the ‘new’ media economy that comes out of this recession is fit for purpose and not just a re-hash of 19^th century ideals.

When the average American watches the evening news there is precious little international coverage. And you can bet that what there is pays scant regard to the millions of lives affected each year in the world’s poorest countries by disease and malnutrition.

And it’s the same when it comes to newspapers. Throughout the United States thousands of editorial jobs have been lost, budgets cut and revenue restricted which has led to a narrowing of coverage. And this means less room for stories about the world’s poor who after all don’t vote and don’t buy advertising.

And here lies the paradox. Because the United States is also responsible for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on fighting these killer diseases in the developing world. The Government through its various aid projects and wealthy private sector organizations such as the Gates Foundation.

So how do we square this circle? There is clearly both the interest and the money to fight disease but no place for coverage in traditional media. Part of the answer here lies in new technology. Take Global Health TV as an example. The channel tackles many of the issues talked about here and is funded via several initiatives. But even so being a web based channel it suffers from the normal competition driving traffic to its site.

So enter the EdgePlayer. Global Health TV has transformed its reach by putting video players on high profile sites whilst retaining control of the content played on them. Take a look at thelancet.com and globalhealthcouncil.org as examples. And the result is over 100, 000 people each month tuning into coverage on global health. And given the problems we have to deal with that coverage is invaluable.

I think one of the key words for 2009 is momentum. And it applies to everything doesn’t it. Barack Obama’s election win is a good example but it applies right across the board. In fact two English Premiership football managers lost their jobs yesterday because their sides lack momentum. Big or small, if you haven’t got it you’re in trouble.

And television has it in droves right now. I was looking at an incredible set of figures that just seem to break record after record. It appears that this year’s Super Bowl had 100 million viewers making it the most watched sporting event in US TV history. And the figures for on-line video are even more staggering. By my calculation there have been some 500 million requests to view from the websites of British broadcasters over the last year or so. With the BBC’s iPlayer alone accounting for some 300 million of those.

So it seems that we’re watching more television than ever across an almost bewildering array of formats. Our own work with the EdgePlayer, which allows companies and other organisations to host video on their sites without any of the traditional technical issues has thrown up some interesting results with literally hundreds of thousands of people watching content in this way.

So the revolution is well and truly with us across all platforms. But if the revolution is with us we still haven’t figured out how to pay for it. The same terrestrial broadcasters with record numbers of viewers are making cuts in programme budgets and even the greatest on-line video phenomena of them all – YouTube – is a long way off covering its costs, let alone making money.

So where’s this all going to end? I’m afraid we’ve already started to see broadcasting casualties in this recession and we will see many more. Because we live in the real world and revolutions in the 21st century have to be backed by a good business plan.

January can be a tough month can’t it? At the best of times temperatures fall, work mounts up, and those credit card bills come tumbling in.

But as we all know these aren’t the best of times are they? We’re now officially in recession and some forecasters think it could be the worst since the Second World War. And with our biggest banks reduced to penny shares these are economic times like no others.

And it’s hard to see a way out. Nobody knows how long or deep this recession is going to be. And one of the biggest casualties in times like these is confidence. And without momentum everything seems harder.

But there is a ray of hope and a lead from New President Barack Obama. A realisation of what needs to be done and the scale of the problem we face but also an unshakeable belief in our ability to get the job done.

And it’s the same for us here at WebsEdge. We started the year off in style in New York producing Historians TV, another great brand to add to our roster. And however tough 2009 and 2010 become we’re going to carry on producing great TV for our vertical audiences. I hope the President is proud of us!

Well, WebsEdge has certainly hit the road this week. We’ve made our first trip to China and very exciting it’s been too!

We’re in Beijing and Shanghai for a number of meetings about future projects. There’s certainly so much to take in. We’ve been to the usual sites, the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City and all the famous attractions those great cities have to offer. We’ve been immersed in the culture and I have to say meetings will never be the same again!

We’ve also been exposed to China’s economy. Staggering rates of growth populated by an expanding increasingly well-educated workforce. And even as that growth moderates a determination to make China one of the economic powerhouses of the 21st century.

But, if I’m going to be honest, I’ve also been struck by how much we have in common. In the UK and the US WebsEdge predominantly works with large organisations, often in the public sector, which have messages they want to get across. These are often complex messages and they find video a useful tool to make those messages more accessible. And there is always the problem of making sure those messages get to the right audiences.

And it appears to be the same in China. For example, as I said education is one of the driving forces behind China’s economic success. And one way China facilitates this is through its University structure. Both by sending Chinese students abroad and bringing foreign students to study in China. And that’s one of the projects we hope to be involved with next year. And that’s the type of project we could be working on anywhere in the world.

So I’m off home clutching my green tea and my phrasebook. But I’m sure we’ll be back again soon to do business in this fascinating and complex country.

We’re no strangers to global distribution here at WebsEdge. Our programmes are produced and distributed all round the world.

But even we were staggered by the success of our latest venture. We’ve teamed up with The Lancet to distribute our Global Health TV Channel through their website. It’s a nifty bit of kit. It’s effectively a video player with a number of sources, which sits on their home page – please go and check it out for yourselves. www.thelancet.com

Now what’s really interested me is the reach the player has achieved. Within a week of launch it’s not just the number of visitors that got my attention but also the number of countries it was viewed in. We now have Global Health TV viewers in over 155 different countries. Now that’s incredible.

And I think we’re seeing the beginning of a new trend here. You see the beauty of our player – we call it the EdgePlayer – is that you can give it a new skin and put it on any relevant site. You feed the content to it from a central location thus creating a virtual community for your video unobtainable from a traditional site or web based TV channel.

This has been a wake up call for us here at WebsEdge. Like many other media companies we have long produced vast amounts of content destined for both traditional television and web based channels. But all that content has required the viewer – in some way – to come to us. Now we’re able to go out to that viewer wherever they may be. I hear Global Health TV is big in Argentina right now and I for one can hardly wait to see where it goes next.