Charles Dickens spent a great part of his life in what is now an anonymous Bloomsbury rat-run for black cabs called Doughty Street. Nearby is Brownlow Street, probably the name Dickens borrowed for the philanthropist who adopts Oliver Twist. It’s a run of sooty, late Georgian terraces, better known these days as the home of a radical British law practice. But to the blogosphere, Doughty Street’s claim to fame is as the home of IPTV outfit, 18DoughtyStreet. Naming an IPTV station like a barristers’ chambers, or a 90s boutique hotel shows chutzpah or cheese.

Went to see them these afternoon, and you have to like what you see. In the spirit of radicalism and entrepreneurialism these guys are trying to get a politics station on air. The sets are hilarious – pot plants and bookshelves. It’s not quite Air America, or Current TV, in fact it bills itself as right of centre, but these days in the UK it’s difficult to know exactly what that means. Rush Limbaugh it is not.

The man fronting it is British blogging phenomenon, Iain Dale. Iain is a left-leaning Conservative, which on the US political spectrum could place him anywhere from a Californian Republican to a New York Democrat.

Iain is fan of intelligent media. He’s run a boutique politics bookshop and publishing house, an intellectual radio station, Oneword, and now he’s trying to bring politics to the niche masses. God loves a trier. His goal, he says, is to correct the left of centre institutional bias in British broadcasting. It’s not a bias I’ve noticed producing any major positive social changes (if only…), but what the hell, he’s mobilising.

Oddly enough, the threat to entrepreneurial ‘intelligistas’ like Iain comes from an unlikely source – the BBC. BBC7 killed the original Oneword, and although the Beeb have sniffed around 18DoughtyStreet they’ll probably try and do it themselves, with more money.

Is this good or bad? On the one hand the BBC is an enlightened state publisher, an unaccountable monopolist whose sheer breadth of output could be seen as an amazing attempt to subsidise high culture by stealth. Certainly friends beyond these shores lament their own lack of state culturism (check out Blairite policy wonk Geoff Mulgan’s excellent ‘Come and Join Us’ on BBC Radio 4 for validation of both quality and institutional leaning).

But on the other hand, every time the broadcast Leviathan moves its vast bulk, some candle flame of creativity is snuffed out. And the BBC’s public sector ethos and key performance indicators make it a weird beast, neither quixotic patron or gutsy amateur. And for that at least, I think it exercises a disabling effect on Britain’s creative activities, like Philip Larkin’s parents, They may not mean to, but they do.’

So good luck to Mr Dale, whatever his politics, and long may he escape the long arm of Auntie.

Oh and why is this post called the media village? That would be Pembury…