
In a definite climb-down, BBC Online is to shutter five websites and has less than four months to review its online activity, after an independent review of the service said it had adversely impacted commercial online competitors, produced sites which lacked any distinction from the private sector, nor acted within the BBC’s public service remit.
Guardian I: Announcing his “initial thoughts” on Philip Graf’s report – which the BBC has had for at least a week – the corporation’s new media chief, Ashley Highfield, said the BBC was shutting five out of an estimates 20,000 web sites, accounting for just 1-2% of the overall traffic to bbc.co.uk.
Philip Graf, the chairman of the review, said their closure was based on “the grounds that their market impact might be greater than their public value”. But Graf landed on the fence over the view among commercial publishers that BBC Online had an adverse impact on the commercial UK Internet market, a theory which he said “could be neither proved nor disproved“.
BBC’s official response to the report, here…
Guardian II: Liberal Democrat culture spokesman Don Foster said the government had to take responsibility for allowing the BBC to “land grab” the internet unfettered by a strong public service remit. The Liberal Democrats rejected Mr Graf’s recommendations that two new governors be appointed to “reinforce” the present system, arguing that the findings emphasised the need for independent regulation.
The key points of the report, here.
The full Graf Report, commissioned by the government, can be downloaded from here (
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