Updated below: More from BBC’s reactionaries and Guardian’s helping them along: BBC staff campaigning against the proposals for advertising on the international site BBC.com have made a final call for the director general, Mark Thompson, to abandon the scheme, says this story. An internal staff e-mail: “It makes it unthinkable that the BBC Trust will allow the website’s integrity and reputation to be compromised.” Like I said, reactionaries.
Also from Guardian: MPs in Parliament have also opposed this in an open letter to national newspapers…The letter, signed by 10 MPs who form part of a 45-strong group that filed an early day motion calling on the BBC to scrap its plans, argues that managers behind the scheme will risk throwing its “hard-won reputation away for a few million pounds”. The letter argues that the BBC News website has “grown into an institution comparable in stature to World Service Radio” and that online advertising would “raise suspicions” in international audiences around impartiality and corporate influence.
A more rational explanation of the move comes from BBC itself, through its media correspondent. BBC already carries advertising on its commercial outlets…These include Radio Times and other magazines; UKTV, the commercial TV service partly owned by BBC Worldwide; and BBC World, its global TV news channel. Indeed, the BBC World website already carries advertising for companies like Barclays, HSBC and Shell. A screen grab of how the homepage with ads would look like, here.
A decision from the Trust is expected tomorrow…we will have extensive coverage.
Updated: Guardian now reports that Trustees met today at Broadcasting House to debate the move and are understood to have deferred making an ultimate decision, although they are likely to signal their intentions in a carefully worded statement tomorrow. They have asked executives to do more work on how the proposals might be implemented before giving their full backing.
Related:
— BBC Scales Back Online Ads; BBCW Digital Revenues; Industry Moves: Worldwide; Vision; BBC Radio 2
— <a href="http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-bbc-roundup/" title="BBC Roundup: BIPA & NUJ
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