SKY TV has been abandoned in our house - (because it’s so cr*p and the constant adverts make it unwatchable). But we still have freeview. I must have been bored the other day because I was seeing what exactly freeview has to offer. And lo and behold, Directgov is on there; and NHS Direct (someone somewhere in government will be planning major service closures - ‘look you can get everything in one place - a real one stop shop - the television!’)

Now this is going to cause all sorts of information management issues for local authorities. Most struggle to deal with information in a static written form so they are not well prepared for moving images and speech (ah, at last metadata will come into its own).

It will also change the way people percieve organisations. l don’t trust television, either as a medium (its controlled by a tiny number of people and there is very little democracy or accountability around how it is structured) or for its content. However, I do like to think I trust my GP or the local hospital, at least to the level of clinical care, even if not IT decisions. Do I trust health info on the television? I don’t think I do.

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