BBC Online costs a whopping 60 pence per month
BBC Online spent four percent less in 2011/12 than the previous year amid cutbacks, its annual report shows.
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Updated: BBC Worldwide Re-Jigs Digital Leadership After Jones Joined Sky
BBC Worldwide is aiming to more closely unify its various web brands, after BBC.com’s managing director Luke Bradley-Jones left in January.
How Accenture Used A Mobile App To Get On The BBC
When the consulting firm’s logo appeared routinely in Six Nations rugby broadcast graphics this weekend, James Cridland was amongst the view…
First Look: BBC Sport Site’s Long-Overdue Reboot Ahead Of Olympics
The BBC will on Wednesday morning refresh its BBC Sport site for the first time significantly since 2004, with a greater emphasis on live da…
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Interview: Lonely Planet CEO Travels Toward 50/50 Media Balance
How does the world’s biggest travel guide book publisher, 39-year-old Lonely Planet, pack its bags for the digital era? “Relentlessly,” CEO…
BBC’s Rivera Era Is About Multi-Screenism
Eight months after he joined the corporation from Major League Gaming, Ralph Rivera has set out his aims for the first time as the BBC’s fut…
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BBC Vision Cuts: 100 Layoffs, Multi-Platform Commissioners Scrapped
The BBC’s Vision department, which produces BBC content, is axing about 100 jobs by March 2012 and scrapping the roles of multi-platform com…
Video Interview: BBC Worldwide’s Dan Heaf On Social Media
Thirty percent of TopGear.com’s traffic comes from Facebook fans, BBC Worldwide’s digital director Dan Heaf tells Beet.tv’s Andy Plesser…
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BBC Multimedia Journalism Head Clifton Redundant
BBC News Online is to lose one of its most experienced journalism executives, when Pete Clifton is made redundant next month.
BBC America Piggybacks On Foursquare For Rugby Drive
Foursquare’s latest media partnership is BBC America. The U.S. TV channel is using the location-sharing tool to drive engagement around its…
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BBC Digital Media Project Delayed For Two Years By Siemens Contract Tear-Up
The BBC’s Digital Media Initiative, an ambitious corporation-wide scheme to record, edit and store AV digitally, has been delayed by 21 mont…
BBC Online Must ‘Urgently’ Improve Indie Quota System
BBC Online is meeting its obligation to commission 25 percent of eligible production work from external suppliers – but must make wide-rangi…
BBC Cuts Aim To Please Commercial Sector But Will Hurt Indies
The BBC’s online cutbacks take pains to placate long-critical commercial opponents, with stepbacks from showbiz, sport and specialist busine…
Analysis: In BBC’s Age Of Austerity, Algorithms Are Axeman’s Best Friend
Some of the BBC’s online cuts (see full list) are not as deep as they might first appear – but the Putting Quality First strategy package ne…
How BBC Online’s Cuts Can Push It Into the 21st Century
The BBC has confirmed that it will be cutting hundreds of online jobs and a quarter of its budget after the UK government slashed funding — but it may end up being the catalyst that forces the corporation to make the most of its web presence.
BBC’s Big Online Cuts: Full Details Announcement
Here is the BBC’s full announcement of its online cutbacks…
The BBC is to re-shape BBC Online by 2013 to deliver its public service miss…
BBC Will Consult Commercial Web Rivals, Online Cuts Soon
The BBC Trust has ratified the Putting Quality First strategy submitted by the BBC executive in March, with two particular new details…
O&O Slide Deck: Half Of People Do Want Local TV
Why let the apparent lack of a business model stand in the way of Jeremy Hunt’s vision for a first ever UK local TV ecosystem? An Oliver & O…
Digital Doctor Who May Be Big This Christmas For BBCWW
The cheesy Brit drama is already a TV hit with kids and sci-fi geeks around the world. Now Doctor Who looks set to boost BBC Worldwide’s dig…
BBC Red Button Underperforms Websites And Must Cut Costs
The BBC’s pseudo-interactive Red Button TV service has high reach but is appreciated by viewers less than BBC online services and must cut c…
BBC Closing Its Backstage Developer Network
BBC Backstage is to close in December, the corporation confirmed today. The five-year-old platform for independent developers has been in a…
BBC Must Finance Local Multimedia Start-Ups With Over £25 Million
As well as having to find £340 million to finance BBC World Service, BBC Monitoring and most of S4C in the government’s spending review, th…
BBC Picks Rivera As Online No. 2 From Major League Gaming
The BBC has finally appointed a new digital media director to run BBC Online, BBC iPlayer, BBC Mobile and BBC Red Button – seven months afte…
Indie Online Producers Press For More BBC Commissions
Independent multimedia producers want the BBC Trust to force BBC executives to commission more content from outside the corporation.
Earlie…
BBCWW Hiring A Global iPlayer Launch Director
BBC Worldwide is plucking an iPlayer exec from the BBC itself to drive through its stuttering plan to launch an overseas version of the VOD…
BBC Hires New iPlayer Manager From Microsoft
The BBC is hiring Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) digital media executive Daniel Danker to its new position of general manager for programmes and on-…
Prototype: BBC TV Made Richer By Hypertext
What if your TV automatically showed you links to related material?
That’s the question this BBC R&D prototype sets out to answer…
BBC Web Reorg: Little Detail Yet On Jobs Impact
So how exactly will the BBC’s online strategy review trickle down to the coalface? Future media and technology boss Erik Huggers spends 2,00…
Hunt: BBC Website ‘Needs Clearer Red Lines’ To Let Competitors Survive
By Nicholas Watt: The BBC needs “clearer red lines” around its website to allow competitors that depend on private revenue to survive, the g…
On the Horizon: Journalism by App
The iPad kicked off a new vehicle for media consumption, and it is getting more commonplace as tablets rise in popularity. Publications can best leverage this information vehicle through tight focus on specific topics. This could be best served by making an app for that.
BBC Allowed To Release Mobile Apps In UK
The BBC has been freed to launch smartphone apps by the BBC Trust, which has ruled that the idea does not need to be subjected to a Public V…
BBC Seeks Ad Dollars With Website Aimed At U.S. Readers
The BBC is continuing its efforts to find overseas advertising money by targeting its main homepage at U.S. audiences for the first time.
T…
BBC Websites Cost Users £0.67 Per Month
The BBC spent £199.3 million on its BBC Online service in 2009/10, according to its annual report – 12 percent more than the previous year.…
BBCWW Lost £20.8 Million On Digital Last Year
BBC Worldwide’s online revenue grew nine percent to £30 million in 2009/10 – but the company still ended up losing £20.8 million on its di…
BBC Worldwide Moves In To Pay-To-Play Gaming With Weakest Link
By Mark Sweney: BBC Worldwide is to make its first foray into pay-to-play gaming linked to TV programming with an online version of The Weak…
Indie Producers To BBC: Please Don’t Cut Your Online Budget
A group of independent multimedia producers is lobbying the Beeb to abandon its planned 25 percent cut of its online budget.
In a submissio…
BBC.co.uk Budget Rises Slightly On Property Cost Increases
BBC.co.uk’s baseline budget has risen by half a million pounds, from £133.8 million per year to £134.3 million per year, reflecting a hous…
BBC Goes Horizontal, Remaining Redesigns Coming Soon
It was back in March that Erik Huggers first previewed upcoming redesigns for the BBC News and BBC Sport websites, including their first eve…
The Huggers Files: The Case Of The Missing Moet
The BBC’s Future Media & Technology (FM&T) director must be getting creeped out by folk tracking his every taxi ride like this – but, as lic…
Lonely Planet Turns Eyjafjallajökull In To An iTunes Opportunity
Cynical exploitation of Mother Nature, or a canny free offer to tempt customers… ?
BBC Worldwide-owned Lonely Planet says it is dropping…
Broadband Content Bits: Doctor Who Games, EastEnders E20, FanDuel In Philly
— Doctor Who games: The BBC commissioned Sumo Digital to make four free downloadable games to accompany Doctor Who as “interactive episodes…
BBC Online Reorg: Kumar, Newman Out, Huggers’ Memo
BBC Future Media & Technology (FM&T) director Erik Huggers is reorganising his division to deliver the smaller operation promised in the cor…
A Fifth Of BBC Sites Are Already Dead
Nearly half of the websites most likely to be closed as part of its big Strategic Review have already long been shut, some for as much as ei…
Indie Web Producers Try To Overturn BBC’s Online Cull
There aren’t many people left calling for BBC Online to remain its current size. So here’s one message from the commercial sector that comes…
BBC Global News Streamlines Digital Exec Roles
After the BBC’s Global News director Richard Sambrook’s recent exit, the corporation is taking the opportunity to combine about eight execut…
BBC Multiplatform Head Shepherd Leaving
BBC Vision’s head of multiplatform products Lloyd Shepherd is leaving the corporation after nine months, blogging: “It
BBC’s Huggers: 400 Domains In Closure, Merger Review
By Mark Sweney: Erik Huggers, the BBC digital chief, has promised its closure of 200 websites is not simply an exercise in cutting dead wood…
Does The BBC Still Believe In Digital?
Yesterday, the BBC
Video: BBC’s Thompson Explains Reasons Behind Cutbacks
BBC director general Mark Thompson, speaking Tuesday at the FT’s Digital Media & Broadcasting conference, explains plans to cut a quarter of…
BBC’s Thompson: Web Cull Is Biggest Part Of Our Cutbacks
Closing 6Music and the Asian Network may have grabbed the headlines in the BBC’s plan to reallocate a fifth of its licence fee income – but…
BBC Downsizing: Websites, Staff Cut By A Quarter, Refocused
The leaks were right – the BBC’s website, along with the corporation’s once-grand multiplatform outlook, is about to get a lot smaller, in a…
BBC Online Cuts Will Be Targeted, Not Total
We already knew the BBC will cut back online and other services, when we read the clear tealeaves in the BBC Trust’s announcement of Mark Th…
Broadband Content Bits: STV Player, Generation Game, Voddler Hacked
— STV mobile: Buoyed by Adobe’s upgrade that makes video more widespread, the Scottish broadcaster is planning an iPhone app for its STVPla…
Industry Moves: AOP Committee; BBCWW Board; Audience Science Marketing
–AOP: The Association of Online Publishers has appointed James Bromley to its executive committee. He has been MD of Mail Online since Apri…
BBC And British Library Take Joint Approach To Building Digital Archive
By Mercedes Bunz: The BBC and the British Library are collaborating on a digital technology project to open up the institutions’ archives, w…
Videos: BBC’s Thompson On 2010’s Online Diet, Free News
As I reported on Tuesday, a strategy review with which the BBC Trust has charged director-general Mark Thompson with leading seems certain t…
BBC Will Consider Whether To Drop Some Websites
The BBC looks like it might bow to critics’ cries of online expansionism by at least considering whether to cull some websites.
The regulat…
No More Lonely Planets: BBC Blocked From M&A
BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s profit-making commercial wing, is being barred from doing any mergers or acquisitions unless in “exceptional circum…
BBCWW’s U.S. Head Leaving, BBC.com America Localising Next Year
BBC Worldwide is losing the president of its fast-growing U.S. operation, Garth Ancier. No news on his next role, but he’s staying on as a n…
BBC’s Keating Taps Tech Pundit Thompson For Archive Role
Long used by the BBC as a tech pundit, Bill Thompson will now become head of partnership development for Roly Keating’s BBC Archive for the…
BBC Tech Staff Underpaid Compared With Private Sector, Says BBC Trust Report
By Mark Sweney: The BBC’s top technology staff are paid “well below” their counterparts in the commercial world, despite the corporation bei…
Industry Moves: BBC FM&T Marketer; PPA’s COO Departs; CBS Comms Director, PlayerX
— BBC: Simon Lloyd, the senior marketing director EMEA at mobile maker Palm (NSDQ: PALM), has joined the BBC as director of marketing, comm…
Spotify CTO Andreas Ehn Leaves For New Projects
The music streaming service has parted ways with its CTO Andreas Ehn, who said in a tweet on Tuesday that he is leaving the company to seek…
BBC Allowed To Spend £1 Million More On Kids’ Websites Over Next Three Years
The BBC Trust has signed off BBC executives’ plans to spend an extra £1 million on their CBBC childrens websites to arrest audience decline…
BBC Wants To Syndicate Unsigned Music To Online Services
The BBC wants to begin offering music from unsigned and emerging artists through third-party services like Spotify and Last.fm.
Its Introdu…
BBC Freezes Budgets Of Three Online Learning Services After Review
By John Plunkett: The BBC Trust has frozen the budgets of three of the BBC’s online learning services pending a review of their market impac…
BBC Bringing Pay-For Mobile Apps To Overseas Users
BBC Worldwide will launch “BBC News and Sport apps on several platforms in the next few months”, BBC.com MD and EVP Luke Bradley-Jones (pict…
Strictly Come Dancing Website Gets More Interactive
By Mercedes Bunz: The BBC is planning to relaunch the Strictly Come Dancing website in time for this weekend’s show.
Users will be able to…
Industry Moves: BBC CIO, Twofour54 GM, Journalism Fund Ed.
— BBC CIO: Beeb chief information officer Keith Little left in August after Auntie in February added Yahoo international engineering SVP Jo…
Tomorrow's World's View Of The Future: Not Far Off
BBC Archive on Monday published a series of old items from its deceased Tomorrow’s World series. We still mourn TW’s passing, so check out t…
BBC Considering Spinning Off Part Of Its Worldwide Division
[by Jane Martinson] BBC executives are considering the part- privatisation of the corporation’s lucrative commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, as…
Industry Moves: BBCWW Digital Director Mercier Heads To Microsoft
BBC Worldwide’s digital sales and business development head Peter Mercier is leaving to be Microsoft’s content acquisitions and strategy sen…
BBC Regulator: Slicing Licence For Broadband 'Would Weaken BBC'
BBC Trust chairman Michael Lyons has repeated his earlier opposition to Digital Britain’s recommendation the BBC’s licence fee be “top-slice…
Broadband Content Bits: Spotify In-Store Sales; Eircom Music Service; BBC Mobile Search
— Spotify: Online music streamer Spotify is selling premium subscriptions in two physical store chains in its native Sweden. Pressbyrån an…
BBC Testing Location-Aware Content With Google Gears
At this point in time, it’s only surprising that mobile carriers aren’t giving content publishers easier access to users’ location. At least…
Tweet Of The Week: Martin Beckford On BBC Expenses
In truth, what some expected to be outrage at BBC executive expense disclosures hardly materialised this week, at least in online profession…
BBC Expenses & Salaries: Tech Execs By The Numbers
No duck moats, mortgage payments or hanging baskets. BBC tech execs emerged in better tact than MPs, after the corporation disclosed execu…
Industry Moves: BBC.com MD Niblock Leaving, Bradley-Jones Steps Up
BBC.com MD Kym Niblock is leaving the corporation, 19 months after taking the role; New York-based EVP Luke Bradley-Jones will add her respo…
Mobile Content Bits: BBC N95 iPlayer, Travel Site; Orange Tube
— N95 iPlayer: The BBC has “launched” its VOD service on Nokia’s popular handset. “Launched”? That’s funny, because the N96 version that…
Livestation’s iPhone App Finally Goes Live – With Only BBC World News
Microsoft-backed desktop TV streamer Livestation first showed off its iPhone demo in December. It didn’t yet have App Store clearance and al…
Corrected: BBC Refused To Disclose Initial BBC.com Ad Figures
Correction: The FOI request was submitted last year, three months before the figures were published in BBCWW’s annual report.
Original: The…
BBC: ‘The Jury’s Out On Phorm’, Targeted Ads Good In Principle
With Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and Wikipedia having already told Phorm not to track web users’ activities on their sites, the pressure is mounting…
Industry Moves: FT.com’s Montgomery Joins BBC; Carat UK; Jaiku, Bingos.com
Former FT.com editor James Montgomery, who was replaced by FT news editor Robert Shrimsley back in January, is now leaving the paper after 1…
BBC.co.uk’s New ‘Buyers Guide’ Points To Digital Content Retailers
The BBC is adding a “buyer’s guide” to its web pages that will send fans of shows to e-tailers that sell accompanying downloads and CDs. The…
Industry Moves: BBC Online Controller Kumar Named Online Access Champion
The BBC has appointed the controller of BBC Online Seetha Kumar to the Birtspeak-esque role of “online access champion”. She will be charged…
Industry Moves: Mary Hockaday To Lead BBC’s Multimedia Newsroom
BBC News is tapping Mary Hockaday to fill Peter Horrocks’ shoes as head of its integrated multimedia newsroom. The separate structures of th…
Easter Video: Inside The BBC’s Wacky Video Projects
paidContent:UK is in a holding pattern during the Good Friday and Easter Monday holidays. Meanwhile, enjoy two videos over your Easter eggs…
BBC Tests Live Mobile TV – With Threat Of Prosecution
The BBC has quietly launched a beta test for a live mobile TV and radio service. The corporation’s broadcasts were already available on-dema…
BBC Worldwide Refocusing Digital Execs In Division Reorg
BBC Worldwide is making a small executive reorganisation of its digital functions to consolidate the operations of its two-year-old, 30-stro…
Industry Moves: Bain Media, BBC Worldwide Asia, Xing Promotions
— Bain & Company: Patrick Béhar (pictured) has been appointed partner and head of the consultancy firm
Ariadne's Julie Meyer Becomes Dragon For New Online-Only Den
Ariadne Capital and First Tuesday founder Julie Meyer is one of the two “dragons” being tapped for the panel of a new, online-only productio…
Mobile Content Bits: BBC Updates Mobile Site; Times Launches Location-based Going Out Guide
— BBC relaunches mobile site: The BBC has launched a beta version of its new mobile homepage, which lets users personalize the BBC content…
BBC Worldwide's Foreign Expansion To Be 'Contained'
BBC Worldwide, the BBC’s profit-making wing whose mission is to reinvest profits in the BBC, should be more tightly restrained, the BBC Trus…
BBC’s RAD Lab Brews TV And Radio Recommendation Tool
By Jemima Kiss: Buried away in one of the BBC’s lesser known west end office blocks, George Wright’s Rapid Application Development team have…
Industry Moves: Microsoft Online Chief Baylay Joins BBC After Highfield’s Arrival
Microsoft’s UK online services group GM Sharon Baylay is becoming the BBC’s director of marketing, comms and audiences, succeeding Tim Davie…
BBCWW Halts Green Site; Four Jobs Lost, May Try For Sale
It’s not that easy being green. BBC Worldwide has put its BBC Green environment site on ice after just 11 months, leading to the redeploymen…
Dragon’s Den Doing Online-Only Show; Video Pitches Mandatory
Lovers of elevator pitch contests (hi Mike, Jemima), start your engines – the BBC is about to do a new, online-only version of Dragon’s Den.…
BBC Stops Trying To Be Google, Abandons Web Search
After being ordered by its BBC Trust to reconsider whether it really wants to do a poor imitation of Google (NSDQ: GOOG), the BBC has decide…
MPs Seek Local Newspaper Bail-Out, BBC ‘Bereaved’ Over Local
Will local newspapers be saved by a government subsidy? That may be one possibility considered by Lord Carter, whose Digital Britain Report…
Mobile Content Bits: BBC In Bangladesh, MusicWave/Mobile Streams, MMA CEO, WPP Reboots Kinetic
— BBC in Bangladesh: The World Service Trust is to work with Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) to develop mobile learning projects in Bangladesh. The S…
Social TV Coming Soon: iPlayer On Boxee, MySpace On Telly
BBC iPlayer is getting some early exposure to the social TV future, ahead of the planned rollout of its own social sharing features later…
Industry Moves: Lonely Planet; Slate; WaPo; Wiredset; General Catalyst
— Lonely Planet: Lonely Planet, the travel brand owned by BBC Worldwide, has hired Dow Jones’ digital strategy and operations SVP Matthew G…
BBC Wins Support For Open VOD Standard, Will Share iPlayer With Rivals
UK commercial TV leader ITV (LSE: ITV) and telco BT (NYSE: BT) are signing up to a BBC project to create an open standard for delivering on-…
Broadband Content Bits: Livestation On iPhone; Olympics Rights; Gaelic iPlayer
— Livestation iPhone: Online live TV app Livestation is preparing to make its service available on iPhone and iPod touch. The outfit says…
Broadband Content Bits: Kirill For Xbox, AOL Rates Beauties, MusicBrainz, Berlusconi In Premiere
— Xbox: Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is adding Kirill, the web video drama series MSN UK commissioned from Endemol, to its Xbox Live video sectio…
BBC Preps Mobile News Push; Mobile Web Use Up By Quarter
The BBC is planning a marketing campaign to raise the profile of its mobile news services, after finding domestic traffic to its mobile web…
BBC Trust: BBC Must Drop $100 Million Local Video Plan; Would Hurt Commercial Rivals
The BBC has been blocked from beginning a £68 million ($101 million), four-year program to add video bulletins to its 65 local UK websites…
BBC Local Reax: BBC ‘Will Consider Options’, Some Breathe Sigh Of Relief
Industry reactions to the rejection of the BBC’s £68 million proposal to add video bulletins to its 65 BBC Local sites…
— BBC managemen…
BBC Trust Rejects £68 Million Online Local Video Proposal
— BBC: The original proposal (pdf)
— BBC Trust: Provisional conclusions (pdf)
— BBC Trust: Public value assessment (pdf)
— Ofcom: Market…
BBC’s Rose, Titus Get New Roles In Tweak To Digital Exec Line-Up
BBC Future Media & Technology (FM&T) director Erik Huggers and COO Kerstin Mogull are shuffling some chairs, in what looks like further mult…
BBC May Open The iPlayer To Overseas Viewers
Overseas web TV viewers could soon be watching Eastenders or Dr Who on the BBC’s VOD iPlayer, says the Beeb
BBC Worldwide To Begin Trialling Behavioural Ads on BBC.com, UK Sites
It
Fearful Execs Still Scapegoating BBC Local; Regulator Must Examine Real Issues
You’ve got to feel sorry for BBC Local’s video proposal. All Auntie wants to do is publish three videos per day on each of its existing loca…
BBC Asset-Stripping Mothballed Jam Site, Selling Content For Profit
It was embarrassing episode for the BBC when it axed its high-profile educational children
BBC Local Finds Unlikely Supporter In Journalists Union
The BBC
Broadband Content Bits: Bauer-Cocosa.com; BBC’s New Unit; Topgear.com Rehauled; VideoJug Signs Deals
— Bauer Media launching fashion e-commerce portal: Bauer Media, publishers of gossip/fashion magazine Grazia, is launching a high-end disc…
Reliance Mobile Offers BBC World News Streaming TV Channel
Reliance Mobile has partners with BBC Worldwide to offer its BBC World News channel through mobile TV streaming. Reliance’s unicast service…
BBC Beats Records For Olympics Traffic On Video, Mobile Surge
We reported last week the BBC’s online services are proving popular for office workers unable to watch live Olympics on the devices formerly…
BBC Hopes To Resume 3G Broadcasts, Trial Take-Up Was Tiny
The BBC Trust is inviting opinions on the BBC’s proposal to resume broadcasting to 3G mobile handsets, following the completion of a 12-mont…
BBC’s Huggers ‘Slated For Job’, But ‘No Announcement Due’
Here’s to embargoes, arrangements and accidents. As predicted, BBC future media and technology (FM&T) controller Erik Huggers is to be crown…
Round-Up: ITN Games Show, Manc Mag, Bragster Appoints, BBC Stats
— ITN Games: The UK newsgatherer’s ITN On multimedia division is now doing contract online news production on a web-and-mobile video show f…
Earnings: BBC.com Ads Help BBCWW Soar; Big YouTube And iTunes Income
BBC Worldwide digital revenue ballooned from £13.9 million to £21.9 million in the year to March 31, thanks to ads on the new BBC.com and…
Knives Out For BBC Local Video Plans, ‘Could Kill Newspapers’
The newspaper community has struck up a harmonious chorus of disapproval toward the £68 million BBC’s local video proposal. Writing on paid…
BBC’s Local Video Plan: £68 Million For 10 Daily Bulletins, Live Streams, Mobile Too
The BBC Trust today published details of the BBC’s local broadband “video journalism” proposal, which has so worried commercial regional pu…
BBC’s Local Video Plan: $133 Million For 10 Daily Bulletins, Live Streams, Mobile Too
The BBC Trust today published details of the BBC’s local broadband “video journalism” proposal, which has so worried commercial regional pu…
Broadband Content Bits: Tesco Digital Launches, Custom iPlayer, Met Office
— Tesco: April reports said the supermarket behemoth would up its music and entertainment download commitment with a new site, TescoDownloa…
BBC Trust Starts Extraordinary Review Of Local Video Plans
Extraordinarily long, that is. The BBC had always expected its proposals to add video services to its 60 Where I Live sites to be put to a p…
Newspaper Society Opposing BBC Local Video Plans – Surprise, Surprise
The Newspaper Society has stepped in to give the BBC yet another kicking (but a rather late one), seeking to use last month’s critical BBC T…
BBC.com Cans Paid Subs Option; Readers Don’t Want What They Say They Want
BBC Worldwide has gone cold on the almost unthinkable idea of charging overseas users for an ad-free BBC.com. The Guardian threw at BBC Worl…
BBC Makes Concession To ‘Unfair Advantage’ Gripes With New Links Push
The BBC News website is to embark on a new push to link to rival commercial publishers, in response to last week’s damning
BBC.co.uk Review: FM&T Will Stay Despite Restructure, Beeb Says
The BBC told paidContent:UK its main digital department will remain, despite being urged to overhaul its new media operations yesterday. The…
BBC.co.uk Overspent By $71 Million, ‘Ineffective’ Bosses Must Change, Investment Frozen
BBC.co.uk overspent by 48 percent in 2007/08 because management is “not sufficiently strong” and “financial oversight has not been sufficien…
Weekend Video: Radio One’s ‘Band In Your Hand’ Festival Candy
BBC Radio 1 is trying out some new things around its One Big Weekend festival in Maidstone, Kent, this weekend. Last year, the station made…
Updated: India To Be Hub Of BBC World News’ South Asia Ops; Content Deal With Six Telcos
Update: India will be the hub of the BBCs South Asian Marketing, Communications and Audience Insight activity, reports Exchange4media. Vaish…
BBC News Co-Founder Calls For Smaller, Faster, Better Online Strategy
The man who launched the BBC News website has laid in to the corporation’s online strategy, as future media and technology director Ashley H…
Highfield’s Successor: Who’s In The Frame For BBC’s Top Digital Job?
The king is gone, long live… whom exactly? BBC future media and technology director Ashley Highfield’s move to Project Kangaroo opens up p…
This Week In Censorship: China Frees BBC, Turkey Bars Slide
China appears to have poked a hole in its Great Firewall, allowing access to the BBC News site, according to reports and a test at WebSitePu…
Interview: Matthew Postgate, Mobile Controller, BBC: Tipping Into The Mobile Mainstream
The BBC’s head mobile honcho Matthew Postgate said that, now that “the iPlayer was out the door”, the broadcaster will be focusing more int…
AOL-Bebo: Reaction From Analysts
— Spencer Wang, Bear Stearns: Cash flow at Bebo is likely to be pretty light, so the buy will cause some dilution at AOL (NYSE: TWX), alt…
BBC Relaunches Mobile Site; Soccer Scores Could Be Focus Of Drive
The BBC has launched today its recently overhauled mobile website, which now emulates the new appearance of the recently-revamped bbc.co.uk.…
BBC Relaunches Mobile Web Site; Soccer Site Gets Big Push
The BBC has launched today its recently overhauled mobile website, which now emulates the new appearance of the recently-revamped bbc.co.uk.…
BBC Takes Down Sponsorship Site Amid ‘Overcommercialisation’ Complaints
For those who, like me, had wondered how the publicly-funded BBC could get away with offering on-screen sponsorships during coverage of even…
BBC Picking Up Pieces Of Jam Online Curriculum Debacle
And so the regulatory merry-go-round begins again. After its overseeing Trust forced it to close its BBC Jam education site on competition g…
Updated: Broadband Content Bits: MyCBBC Plans, Innovation Grants, iPlayer US
– MyCBBC: The right-wing press gave the BBC a kicking for planning a “Facebook for kids”. In fact, explains CBBC controller Richard Deverell…
BBC's Social Networking Site For Kids Aged 6-12 Under Attack
The BBC
TV Programme Info Via Mobile Barcodes From BBC
The BBC is rolling out mobile “barcodes” that could deliver programme information to handsets. So-called QR (Quick Response) codes employ pi…
Industry Moves: Brannan Appointed BBC Emerging Platforms Editor
BBC News website deputy editor Paul Brannan has been appointed “emerging platforms” editor at the corporation. In its tenth anniversary last…
Industry Moves: BBC Tech Exec Forsyth Joins Media Charity
BBC future media and technology senior business development manager Daren Forsyth is taking a year-long break from Auntie to become director…
BBC’s Huggers: ‘I Had To Leave Microsoft To Innovate’
Six months after joining the corporation from Microsoft, (NSDQ: MSFT) BBC future media and technology controller Erik Huggers has penned a b…
New BBC Homepage ‘In A Few Weeks’; Drag-And-Drop Widgets
We posted last month on a sneak preview given to Barcamp attendees of a forthcoming BBC homepage redesign. Now the BBC’s Ryan Morrison has…
BBC Worldwide Greatly Ups Online Forecast After Unexpected Growth
BBC Worldwide is raising online revenue forecasts after watching growth outstrip its expectations. The broadcaster’s commercial subsidiary h…
BBC Reaches Agreement With Indies on New Media Commissioning
BBC has reached an agreement with the indie TV production body Pact, on the rights framework for new media…this follows an online rights e…
BBC Newsnight Relays Phantom Wall Street Fortunes
Nobody’s perfect, so forgive BBC Newsnight for stating in its markets round-up on Thursday “Dow Jones (NYSE: DJ) was substantially down amid…
BBC Newsroom Now Integrated, Will Bring More On-Demand, Personalisation
BBC News expects to produce more on-demand content for mobile and IPTV after flipping the switch on its new multimedia integrated newsroom.…
BBC Ads Are Now Live – BBC.com Execs Hired, Video Ads Coming Too
Advertisements started appearing overnight on BBC web properties when viewed from outside the UK, and the corporation has made three hires f…
BBC Worldwide To Launch 30 Channels Internationally; On Demand Online As Well
BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, plans to launch 30 channels internationally, as well as a HD outlet and an on-demand service in U.S.,…
BBC Worldwide Picks DoubleClick For BBC.com Ad Delivery
BBC Worldwide is giving online advertising network DoubleClick the task of serving up ads to users of the forthcoming BBC.com, even though t…
BBC.com Ads Get Go-Ahead, Starting Next Month
It may have got lost in news of job cuts but the BBC Trust has approved the proposal to launch BBC.com with advertising support, global news…
BBC Future Media Shedding Up To 130 Jobs; iPlayer Safe; Newsroom Converging
After a week of speculation, BBC director-general Mark Thompson has broken the news to staff and the real numbers are now in on the scale of…
BBC Sheds Thousands Of Jobs, BBC.com Ads Get Go-Ahead
From our sister site paidContent:UK: A big day on which the BBC director-general won approval for two key proposals, heralding big changes a…
BBC Trust Approves Job Cuts, BBC.com Ads; Commercial Download Player For Worldwide
From our UK site paidContent:UK: BBC Trust has approved director-general Mark Thompson’s six-year plan purportedly involving the loss of aro…
BBC Trust Approves Job Cuts, Ponders BBC.com Ads Proposal
It’s official – the BBC Trust this afternoon approved director-general Mark Thompson’s six-year plan purportedly involving the loss of aroun…
Cumbria Kicking Off UK Digital TV Switchover
It’s history in the making – tomorrow, Whitehaven in Cumbria (population: 25,500) will wake up Wednesday having been the first place in the…
BBC iPlayer — Finally — Will Go Cross-Platform With Adobe
After months of criticism, the BBC will be able to offer Mac and Linux users access to its catch-up video service iPlayer by the end of the…
BBC: Cross-Platform iPlayer With Adobe, Free WiFi Access; Highfield: Won’t “Beggar Digital Future”
The BBC today is announcing two separate deals to increase access to its online content in the UK: one with Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) to stream con…
BBC Layoffs: What Are The Implications For Online?
Not a great year for the BBC. On top of the various fakery scandals and a £2 billion ($4.1 billion) shortfall in revenues from its license…
BBC Joins The Kids’ Virtual World Bandwagon
More online diversion for children, courtesy of the UK’s public broadcaster: yesterday at Mipcom in Cannes the BBC unveiled details of its n…
BBC’s Thompson To Announce Jobs Cuts Oct 18
It is coming..the way to squeeze out £2 billion of savings out of BBC. The firm’s director general, Mark Thompson, will tell staff on Octob…
BBC Worldwide’s Lonely Planet Buy ‘Around £100 Million’; Investment To Put Guides Online
FT.com has further numbers concerning BBC Worldwide’s acquisition of 75 percent of the Lonely Planet travel guides publisher (see earlier po…
BBC Worldwide Buys Travel Guide Company Lonely Planet
BBC Worldwide, the international commercial arm of BBC, has been promising some acquisitions for a while now, and this one fits right in: it…
BBC Gives Digital, Mobile Greater Role In Commissioning Process
BBC Vision, the unit of the broadcaster that “makes BBC content that people watch”, is restructuring its TV commissioning process to account…
Industry Moves: BBC Worldwide Staffs Up Digital Delivery Team
BBC Worldwide, the public broadcaster’s overseas, commercial arm, has made eight hires to its new “digital delivery” team, the unit created…
BBC’s Survey on Commerical Worldwide Site: Users Rejected Ad-Supported Idea?
One way or the other, everyone’s biased on this one: BBC Worldwide wants an ad-supported BBC.com site, so will twist the user surveys the wa…
BBC In Concert Series To Go Mobile In Europe
From MocoNews: BBC Radio has signed a deal to put the In Concert series on mobile via spodtronic (previously Spodradio) — it features over…
Interview: Ashley Highfield, Director, BBC Future Media & Technology: Trust Takes Too Long
The BBC’s digital media supremo has said the broadcaster’s regulator should speed up the process for green-lighting new internet projects. I…
Broadband ISPs Talking To BBC Over iPlayer Bandwidth Consumption Issues
This has shades of net neutrality debate: in UK, three of the biggest broadband providers Tiscali, BT and Carphone Warehouse, among others,…
Broadband Content Bits: BBC: Rugby World Cup; Setanta; Mirror
— BBC: The BBC News website is launching advertising-supported broadband video for overseas users. The corporation had previously started s…
BBC Cancels Interactive Contests Across Platforms, Suspends Senior Staff Over Phoney Phone-Ins
The BBC has canceled all competitions across radio, TV, interactive and online, as the U.K.’s snowballing participation TV scandal unearthed…
BBC Worldwide Targets Digital Acquisitions After Strong Profit Year
BBC Worldwide, the UK public service broadcaster’s overseas commercial arm, will turn its attention toward digital acquisitions over the nex…
BBC, ITV Win Online, Mobile Rights To Euro 2008 Soccer Tournament
The BBC and ITV have won the UK broadcast and new media rights from European soccer body UEFA to its Euro 2008 championships. The rights pac…
Decision For Ads on BBC.com Delayed, Again
The best defense for being unsure is delaying the inevitable: BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons has asked for more time to consider contr…
BBC: Multi-Platform Alternate Reality Game Launches; More Criticism
The BBC has launched an alternate reality game (ARG) to support a Radio 1 music festival this weekend. The game centers on Paul Denchfield,…
BBC Bets Its Future On Location-Based Services, Names New Mobile Content Head
Will users want to access location-specific information while watching mobile TV shows on the fly? The BBC thinks so and hinted at its futur…
BBC Regulation “Strangling Digital Innovation”, Some Say
The new regulatory regime ushered in at the BBC in January is hampering online innovation, according to a selection of anonymous “insiders”…
Industry Moves UK: BBC Raids BSkyB, Virgin Radio, Microsoft For Future Media
Ashley Highfield’s Future Media & Technology unit at the BBC has made a trio of appointments to its leadership team (via Broadcast magazine)…
Industry Moves UK: NBCU Global MD Joins BBC, New Media Revenue Focus
Nick Betts, NBC Universal’s global channels MD for the UK and Northern Europe, has been appointed head of commercial and business developmen…
Industry Moves: Former Vodafone Exec Geitner Joins BBC Worldwide’s Board
BBC Worldwide has appointed former Vodafone exec Thomas Geitner to its board as a non-executive director in preparation for imminent digital…
AOL, UKTV Strike Lifestyle TV Content Deal, Broadcaster’s Biggest So Far
AOL and UKTV have struck a syndication contract to carry clips form the lifestyle TV network on the web portal in Britain. UKTV operates 10…
Google to Viacom: Be More Like BBC, We’re Not Slowing Down
Google has come out with a bullish defence against Viacom’s $1 billion copyright lawsuit. The Guardian quotes Google’s head of video content…
BBC Axes Online Educational Service, After Fears Of Commercial Sector Impact
BBC Trust is cracking the whip on BBC, and is scrapping online education service BBC Jam, following complaints from commercial rivals…it w…
@ OPA: Interview: BBC’s Ageh on YouTube, iPlayer, Acknowledging Market Disruption
The BBC has attracted a quarter-million views from YouTube since launching its partnership with the video sharing site six days ago. Followi…
BBC Trust Defers Decision On Online Ads
BBC Trust, the governing body for BBC, has made a decision on the controversial issue of ads on BBC.com: no decision. Yep, that will help wi…
More from BBC Reactionaries: Some Staff and MPs Oppose; The Rationale; Half-Approval Possible
Updated below: More from BBC’s reactionaries and Guardian’s helping them along: BBC staff campaigning against the proposals for advertising…
BBC Scales Back Online Ads; BBCW Digital Revenues; Industry Moves: Worldwide; Vision; BBC Radio 2
Giving in to the reactionaries following the controversy about BBC running ads on its international site, it now only plans to run ads on ta…
BBC Roundup: BIPA & NUJ’s Hypocrisy; Highfield Vaportalk; Signs Of Life
— An alliance of British media organizations, including BIPA and NUJ, is calling on the BBC Trust to reject plans to run ads on the corpora…
BBC's Download Plans Get Approval From Trust; Restrictions On What BBC Can Do
Not that this was going to be an issue after Ofcom set the path earlier this month, but BBC Trust gave initial approval to the BBC’s on-dema…
BBC's On-Demand Plans Criticized By Ofcom; Expects 30% TV Viewing Dropoff in 5 Years
BBC’s online on-demand plans (its iPlayer service with archives of the last seven days of shows) has received a cautious recommendation from…
BBC-Video-On-Google Talks; NYC Ad Sales Offices; Top Gear U.S. Site
Updated below: An overblown story in Guardian, on talk between Google and BBC, to provide BBC video on Google Video to being with and then p…
BBC Set On Hiring Online Ad Sales People For Overseas
In what will bring another round of protests from the curmudgeons, BBC is set to recruit dozens of ad executives as it looks to bolster its…
BBC Can Spend $680 Million On M&A, Including Social Networking, But Will It?
Update: The Mail on Sunday had the same story five months ago. So why is it a Guardian exclusive then?
Original post: That money would have…
BBC’s International Video News Player To Carry Ads
So at least some progress: BBC is planning to launch an international version of its video NewsPlayer in the new year which will carry ads f…
BBC Launches Vision Integrated Commissioning Unit
BBC Vision, the new integrated broadcast and production group that replaces the old linear Corporation structure, officially launched today.…
BBC To Start Paying For User-Gen Content
This is a big step in the user-generated content space: BBC will start paying for viewer contributed content, but only for material that is…
UK Roundup: BBCW Digital Content head; BBC iPlayer; Associated Northcliffe Digital; News Group
— BBC Worldwide’s new Digital head: Jemma Adkins has been appointed head of content for the digital division of BBC Worldwide…she will be…
BBC Could Earn $200 Million In Online Ad Revenues From International Site; Employees Balk Again
The BBC could generate about $200 (110 million GBP) million from global online advertising revenues, according to a new report from Accentur…
BBC Pushes New Media Innovation With Indie Labs
The BBC has announced more “innovation labs” for 2006-07, inviting UK-based new media production companies to submit ideas for new products…
BBC To Use Microsoft For Re-Working On BBC’s Digital Services
The BBC has tied up with Microsoft which sets out the framework for collaboration on projects including the online archive and the “Web 2.0″…
BBC’s On-Demand Services Up For Approval
The second-half of the review of the BBC’s proposed on-demand services begins today with the start of regulator Ofcom’s “market impact asses…
UK Public Would Pay Even More For BBC; Online “Worth” $1.12
People in the UK would be prepared to pay an even higher licence fee for BBC services, according to research by The Work Foundation. It foun…
UK Roundup: BBC Worldwide Social Net Dreams; BT Launching Its Own;
— ThisIsMoney has a speculative piece, citing sources, that BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of BBC, may be looking to buy some social net…
UK Round-Up: London Olympics New Media; BBC iPlayer; Five; Newspaper Society
— Alex Balfour, formerly the founder of CricInfo and founding team member of Guardian Unlimited, has been appointed head of new media for t…
BBC’s Cross-Platform Content Plans
Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s head of future media and technology, touches on some of the corporation’s plans for cross-platform content in th…
Edinburgh TV Confab: BBC’s Director Of Vision Talks Convergence
More from the MediaGuardian TV shindig in Edinburgh … BBC director of vision Jana Bennett said the BBC must continue to produce high quali…
BBC’s Digital Dreams, Post Restructuring: It’s Not Too Late
A profile and interview with Ashley Highfield, who till recently was the new media head at BBC, and after the big restructuring, is now head…
BBC Restructuring: Highfield’s Spending Power Soars
With this big restructuring at BBC, the till-now-head of new media Ashley Highfield is now heading the new Future Media & Technology divisio…
More On BBC Restructuring; New Future Media and Technology Division
As Rafat wrote earlier, BBC Director-General Mark Thompson announced the details today of the anticipated reorganization designed to make th…
BBC’s Annual Report: Spend on BBC.co.uk About $135 Million
BBC came out with its annual report today, and wealth of information and data, though not much detailed numbers on digital media spend. Amon…
UK News Roundup: BBC Radio; Cartoon Broadband; Emap Launch; BSkyB Broadband
— BBC to offer personalized radio: The BBC wants to allow audiences to create personal radio stations from its content…a new service call…
BBC Worldwide Firms Up Ad-Supported Site; No Banners, Only Text
BBC Worldwide has firmed up some plans for its controversial ad-supported international website, BBC.com: it will launch in Q1 next year, wi…
BBC Worldwide Sees Digital Media Profits Rise by $15 Million
BBC Worldwide, the commerical arm of BBC, is in profits on the digital media side, to $6.17 million for last year, up from a loss of $8.7 mi…
BBC May Restructure Operations; Separate New Media Division May Go
The BBC is planning more major changes to its structure, which could finally lead to the end of the controversial broadcast/production split…
BBC To Make Salford Quays Its New Media Centre
Salford is the city I was born in, and that’s where BBC is going to base its new media operations…Five departments are set to move to Salf…
Defending BBC’s New Media Spend
BBC new media supreme Ashley Highfield is parading some numbers on how much it will cost a UK license-fee payer
BBC Delays Ads on International Online Version
The curmudgeons have prevailed, at least momentarily: BBC has delayed a “controversial “decision on introducing ads to its international ne…
BBC Staff Protest Ads on International Online Version
Ridiculous: More than 150 BBC staff have signed a letter protesting about plans to introduce advertising on the international version of BBC…
@ Content 2.0: The BBC’s Folksonomies & Tagging Motivations
[Ed: Our London journo Jemima Kiss was at the Content 2.0 conference yesterday…her reports from there continue today…full coverage here.…
BBC Reaches New Media Exploitation Pact With Pact
In UK, BBC has become the first broadcaster to settle with independent producer trade body Pact over the exploitation of programme rights, i…
BBC to Webcast Football World Cup; Wimbledon Live Online
Only for UK users, of course, but big initiative from BBC to make office productivity fall to record low during the next month or so. For th…
BBC’s Global Ambitions; Acquisitions Possible
The Thompson-bluster, at its finest: the BBC director-general Mark Thompson says in an interview with FT that BBC is the only European media…
BBC Does Not Want To Become Like MySpace
Glad they cleared that one up…after some criticism for giving into all kind of buzzwords and ambitions of treading over competitors (most…
UK Media Groups Unite Against BBC’s Digital Expansion
Not that any of this opposition has done anything till now, but they’re trying again: Uk media groups News International (Murdoch-owned), As…
BBC To Webcast Music Festival Within Second Life
Not sure if this is a first, but neat idea: BBC plans to simulcast of its Radio 1 Big Weekend Music Festival this Saturday inside the popul…
AOP Highlights: Video Potential, Personalisation and UGC
Catching up with snippets from the AOP’s Tomorrow’s Web forum which clashed with We Media last week in London.
— A poll of AOP members iden…
@We Media: Ads On The BBC Are Nothing New
“We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” said Richard Sambrook, BBC’s director of global news, on the proposals to introduce adverts…
BBC’s Creative Future Initiative; Gives Into All The Buzzwords Ever Invented
This post could be very long, but I’ll link to this story from MediaGuardian and then go from there: The BBC has unveiled its “Creative Futu…
More Details on BBC’s Online Advertising Plans For Overseas Users
So a huge amount (as much as 35 million page views a month) of online inventory just opened up…well, it will, once BBC starts taking ads o…
BBC To Stream News 24 Online
BBC is to stream its 24-hour new channel News 24 online, for its UK users, but may face a problem over online sports rights The channel feat…
BBC To Focus On User-Gen Content In Overhaul
(sub. req.) Or so it is saying in this story..I still doubt whether they would be completely open to other competitor’s content on its perso…
BBC’s On Demand Experiment Shows Bedtime is Primetime
Well, bedtime in UK, to be clear…BBC’s trial of its Integrated Media Player (the online TV download service/players from
BBC, for archives…
Industry Moves: BBC Appoints U.S. Digital Media Head
The BBC’s Gill Pritchard is crossing the Atlantic to transition into a new role as senior VP for both BBC America and BBC Worldwide’s new-me…
BBC To Launch Ad-Supported Service For Overseas Audience, on BBC.com
BBC, which has been hinting at a commerical online service for overseas audiences (getting BBC video feeds for a fee etc), has announced som…
@ Public Broad-Conf: Paul Gerhardt,Joint Director, BBC Creative Archive
At the Public Broadcasting New Media Conference in Seattle today, Paul Gerhardt, Joint Director, BBC Creative Archive gave a very good overv…
NATPE 2006: Exclusive Audio: Interview With BBC Chairman Michael Grade
During his NATPE 2006 keynote, BBC Chairman Michael Grade urged device manufacturers and content providers to make it easier for the consume…
BBC Stockpiling Web Addresses
This is half interesting as a controversy: In UK, the BBC is building a huge stockpile of internet domain names not related to bbc.co.uk, it…
BBC Media Player Trial: First Impressions
A very detailed review of BBC’s iMP or integrated Media Player. The project is a broadband service that will enable selected TV and radio pr…
BBC World News To Launch In U.S., Through RealNetworks
BBC World News is to be launched in the U.S., 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as part of RealNetwork’s SuperPass broadband service in the…
UK Music Companies Win A Round, Prevent Free BBC Radio Classical Downloads
The BBC’s limited-time free downloads of the BBC Philharmonic’s Beethoven symphonies during a marathon were a hit with everyone but the UK m…
Cost of Internet Channel, From BBC
A story on BBC’s attempt to deliver online version of its shows, the iMP project which we’ve written about here in some detail before. An in…
Industry Moves: BBC News Appoints Interactive Head
Pete Clifton has taken over as head of BBC News Interactive, which publishes the BBC News website and the Ceefax teletext service. He replac…
BBC Seeks Funding Boost For New Digital Services
This will not go down too well with the commercial and political spectrum in UK: The BBC, Britain’s publicly funded broadcaster,wants more t…
Reactions To BBC’s License Fee Move: Greedy Auntie
That, in one phrase, is the general reaction among UK newspapers today, following the proposed license fee increase for BBC’s new digital s…
BBC’s Highfield Says Media Owners Must Become Technologists Too
[by Mike Butcher] Ashley Highfield, head of BBC New Media, spoke to the UK’s Association of Online Publishers Conference in London today, te…
BBC’s Interactive Media Player Screenshots
BBC, which has launched its interactive media plyers in trials in UK, has posted som more details online..the IMP allows download and archiv…
BBC Needs To Become an Video Aggregator Online
So argues Emily Bell in the Guardian, focusing on BBC’s recent trials with its online archives in UK…”In the world of new, more open busin…
BBCi Plans To Charge For Overseas Access — As Soon As It Can Figure Out How
Before hissy fits are thrown, even though the idea of limiting access by country truly pains me, keep in mind that UK residents already pay…
BBCnews.com Launches Big Online Ad Campaign; Uses RSS Feeds
The BBC is launching its biggest ever online marketing campaign for its international news site, bbcnews.com…The six month campaign, calle…
Details on BBC’s iMP Online TV Archives Project
WSJ gets some more details on the ambitious online TV project by BBC, where it has started a trial of all its shows being available online,…
BBC Trials Labelling System For On-Demand Content
In UK, BBC will begin trialling a new labelling system for online on-demand content on its interactive media player (iMP). It is being devel…
BBC’s Mark Thompson’s Speech at Edinburgh ITF: MyBBCPlayer Details
Mark Thompson, Director-General of BBC, gave a speech at the Edinburgh International Television Festival 2005 a week ago, and his full speec…
“MyBBCPlayer” To be Launched Next year
Also at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, BBC Director General Mark Thompson revealed some more plans about BBC’s ambitious o…
The Future Challenges For BBC and Public Service Broadcasting
The former BBC director general Lord Birt (and now Tony Blair’s strategy advisor) gave a keynote speech at the biggest TV festival in UK, th…
BBC’s Renewed Push Online And On Mobile
Update: read below:
BBC plans to accelerate plans to broadcast programmes and entire channels on the internet and on mobile phones, using po…
BBC Opens Up Creative Archive With Some Content
BBC’s ambitious online archives project, the Creative Archive, has finally been populated with some content from BBC’s video archives, in a…
BBC Confirms Local TV News Pilot Details
The BBC has released more details for the local TV news pilot service due to start in the West Midlands during December. The pilot will run…
BBC’s Seven-Day DVR
In UK, BBC is experimenting with a DVR that can store the entire output of free-to-air TV for a week or more. The project, codenamed Pandora…
BBC To Stream Current Affairs Programs Online, Live and On-Demand
My wishes are being granted, slowly but surely: BBC has put its current affairs programs online, in full, live and on demand. This is a big…
BBC’s New Online Soap To Teach English
The BBC World Service is launching its first online soap opera to help listeners learn English. The Flatmates, a drama about a group of mult…
BBC May Sell Programs Online
Not exactly my dream, but still some way towards it: The BBC is to sell its programmes to overseas viewers over the Internet and may also ta…
BBC To Premiere Comedy Series Online; Accused of Land Grab
In UK, BBC Three is to stream the new series of comedy “The Mighty Boosh” from 19 July 2005, a week ahead of its TV transmission on 26 July.…
BBC's Creative Archive: The Moral Imperative
Ben Hammersley makes a strong argument to kickstart Creative Archive, the ambitious BBC project to put all TV shows/news as archives online.…
BBC Raising External Online Work Commitment
The BBC is increasing the amount it spends on external new media commissions by 30 percent, to 8 m GBP, in a move that will inject much-need…
UK MPs Seek To Block BBC Free Downloads
In UK, the All Party Internet Group (APIG) may try to block the BBC from giving away its archived material to internet users..the MP group i…
Industry Moves: MTV Poaches BBC New Media Expert
Angel Gambino, the high-profile head of new platforms at BBC, is moving to MTV, in what sounds like a similar position. She publicly announc…
BBC's Threat To UK's Online Newspapers
Finally Economist comes out and does a story on BBC’s vast efforts online and how it effects online newspapers in UK. The BBC now has 525 si…
BBC Set To Release New Video Codec
The BBC is poised to release its open source internet video delivery system, called Dirac, to compete head on with proprietary favorites lik…
BBC To Spend $338 Million On New Media Projects
So much for cutting BBC’s spending on new media projects: it will spend an extra
Industry Moves: Angel Gambino To Leave BBC New Media
Angel Gambino, the high-profile head of new platforms at BBC is leaving the corporation…Gambino, who is originally from U.S., did not disc…
The Beeb Shall Inherit the Earth
A glowing tribute to BBC’s digital efforts, all of which we document here…”America’s entertainment industry is committing slow, spectacula…
BBC iMP: Public Trial For 5,000 In September
As I noted here last week, BBC New Media is to extend trials of its interactive Media Player (iMP), allowing UK viewers to download material…
BBC Will Trial iMedia Player This Year
BBC’s online on-demand programming experiment, called IMP (interactive media player) will go into full consumer trial this year…Building o…
BBC Worldwide To Shift Focus From Web Ads To Content Syndication
BBC Worldwide, the money-making division of the Beeb, is trying to reduce its reliance on online ads as a revenue stream with a major push i…
Peter Kaufman’s Intelligent TV World
This follows from the post below….here’s a very interesting speech by documentary film producer Peter B. Kaufman at the Creative Archive’s…
Creative Archives Has Six Clips
OK, I know I’m hard on BBC sometimes, but this one was too good to miss: its Creative Archive project–which now includes others like Channe…
2005 Webby Winners
Lots of glee and some dashed hopes as the Webby winners are announced. The BCC won four awards, including best news site; Guardian Unlimited…
BBC To Cut More Online Content
The BBC has caved-in to government recommendations that it should outsource more of its online output to the commercial sector, while creati…
ISPs Dismiss BBC Worries Over Foreign Control of Broadband
Foreign-owned ISPs–like AOL and MSN–have defended their position in the development of the UK broadband market after the BBC’s director of…
BBC Vocab/Geirfa
The BBC continues to experiment and innovate online. The latest twist — a dictionary program that translates words as the user moves the cu…
BBC’s Broadband Ambit
I mentioned this speech by BBC director of new media and technology Ashley Highfield…this is the full text of the speech. Some high-faluti…
BBC Creative Archive: Pilot to Start in 2005
Some more details of BBC’s Creative Archive in this story…a presentation by Paula Le Dieu, co-director of the Creative Archive, the projec…
Can BBC Online Do More With Less?
An analysis of the upcoming cuts at BBC, including major ones at its online unit, and its effects…The way that things are going, it looks…
BBC Proposes Broadband Freeband
Delivering the keynote speech at the Broadband Britain Summit, BBC director of new media and technology Ashley Highfield predicted a new era…
BBC Warns Of Rising Costs For Digital Distribution
The BBC warned of escalating distribution costs as it rolled out programmes and services on internet, mobile and free-satellite platforms. M…
BBC.co.uk: Possible Job Cuts
BBC bosses are considering shedding jobs at BBC News Online in an effort to cut costs…the online division could lose some of its 200 newsd…
BBC Launches VOD Trials
In UK, BCC is conducting tests on a service allowing licence holders to download or store the BBC schedule on a weekly basis so they can cho…
The Lost Treasures of BBC
I’ve written about this before: BBC’s ambitious project to put its archives online (the Creative Archives project) is now a sorry excuse for…
BBC Asking Channel 4, Others, To Join Online Archives
Also in the same story (as below), BBC is actively pursuing this idea in talks with Channel 4, the British Film Institute and the British Li…
BBC Launches Open-Source Video Technology
The BBC has announced its open-source video compression project Dirac, which it hopes may one day give Windows Media Player a run for its mo…
UK Regulator Wants New Competition To BBC
In a rather remarkable move, UK’s media regulator Ofcom has suggested setting up a new public service broadcaster (PSB), with a budget of 30…
BBC News launches aggregation service
BBC has jumped into the news aggregation game: well, sorta. It is linking to other stories on the Web..big step…well…
It is automated: “…
Presidential Election Sees BBC Push Online News in US
BBC Online has launched an online ad campaign here to boost traffic in the run-up to the Presidential elections in November.
The campaign,…
Presidential Election Sees BBC Push Online News in US
BBC Online has launched an online ad campaign here to boost traffic in the run-up to the Presidential elections in November.
The campaign,…
BBC’s Creative Archives To Launch Next Month
(reg. req.): BBC’s ambitious online archiving project, “Creative Archives”, will launch next month, and Guardian does a fawning review and s…
BBC’s Digital Direction
A hodge podge, for sure…
BBC Invites Talks For Worldwide Division
BBC has invited Time Warner, Bertelsmann and Walt Disney to discuss possible bids for BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial sales and…
BBC: Yes, We Do, Yes, We Don’t
A long and interesting interview with Ashley Highfield, Director of New Media & Technology at BBC, on a wide variety of topics: broadband in…
BBC Wizardry Set To Make Waves
(reg. req.) Throw tons of public money, and what do you get? A BBC gizmo called the interactive Media Player that will allow license-fee pay…
BBC Rules Out Online Show Previews
BBC has made a clarification (no doubt due to rights issues) on its plans for putting its archives online: it will not allow users to record…
BBC Sees New Technology Horizon
A continuation of BBC’s technology moves in putting its video content online…this time an interview with Paul Cheesbrough, BBC head of tec…
Putting BBC’s Archives Online Part 1
Part 1 of a series on engineers studying the feasibility of putting the humongous BBC archive online.
Storage is…not the only technical i…
Putting BBC’s Archives Online Part 3
Part 3 of a series on engineers studying the feasibility of putting the humongous BBC archive online.
This is on BBC’s open-source video co…
Putting BBC’s Archives Online Part 2
Part 2 of a series on engineers studying the feasibility of putting the humongous BBC archive online.
This is on the importance of metadata…
BBC Olympics Pioneers Multi-Casting Technology
BBC, which was worried about the cost of online streaming of the Olympics, is using multi-casting technology to minimize the costs…Multi-c…
BBCNews.com To be Promoted In US
BBC’s news site, BBCNews.com, will be promoted in U.S…ad agency Agency Republic has been hired by the BBC World Service.
The agency won th…
BBC Tunes In To A Digital Future
BBC’s vows to digitize all their programs and fully switch over to digital terrestrial TV by 2012, in an effort to make these programs avail…
Other UK Channels on BBC’s Online Experiment?
(see last item): BBC’s found a neat way to quell worries about its plans to give away its video content online, through its Interactive Medi…
BBC to Be Purely Digital By 2010
BBC plans to digitize its entire production process by 2010 and expects to cut costs by more than 10 per cent as result.
Meanwhile, BBC has…
BBC Eyes Broadband Launch
(reg. req.): BBC new media director Ashley Highfield has revealed that the corporation could launch its own low cost broadband service, just…
BBCi Must Attract More Viewers
The BBC board of governors has said that the Corporation needs to address the fact that the number of people using its interactive TV servic…
BBC Radio To Publish Monthly Online Figures
Should be a good thing to get an idea of UK’s streaming radio figures: it will publish the monthly online, streaming and ‘on demand’ perform…
“Don’t knock the BBC”… Why Not?
Give me successful innovation, not Corporation…
BBC Technology Handed To Siemens For £2bn
BBC Technology, the tech arm of BBC which was up for sale, has been bought by Siemens Business Services, for £2bn.
Siemens will provide a…
BBC Reins in New Technology
(reg. req.): Following the Graf report yesterday, BBC is to radically cut back on plans to develop services for mobile phones and handheld c…
Future Net Content Trends in UK Market
As part of the BBC Online’s review, the govt. also commissioned a study on the future trends in online content market in UK, and how these w…
More BBC Websites May be Closed
This BBC story is certainly spoiling my holiday today…more BBC websites may be closed after the whole internal review process is over, BBC…
BBC Shuts Sites As Report Criticizes Commercial Impact
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 inde…
BBC Stakes Future On Digital And Broadband
The BBC set out its plans for the future today, publishing its vision of a Britain where everyone in the UK has equal access to digital ser…
Historical BBC Archives Go Online
Historical footage from the BBC and CBS news archives has gone online for the first time. The BBC Motion Gallery will provide direct access…
BBC Wins Online Olympic Rights
The BBC has won the online rights to cover the 2010 Winter Olympics and 2012 Games, as it prepares to offer live broadband coverage of the A…
Dirac From The BBC
A story on the open-source video encoding technology Dirac, which has come out of BBC’s R&D labs. BBC boasts that the new approach to high-q…
BBC to Open Content Floodgates
Read the first line twice…nature programming. Yeah, we got punked, for now. By the BBC and their lawyers, that is. As I wrote about the Cr…
BBC Online Review Report
The much-awaited BBC Online’s review reprot by UK’s Department of Culture Media and Sport may be coming out in the next few weeks, finally,…
OBE For BBC Website Founder
Mike Smartt, the man who founded the BBC news website, has received an Order of British Empire (OBE) from the British royalty..
Join Friends of the Creative Archive and Help BBC
A noble effort, but slightly foolhardy, if you ask me…the group wants the controversial and ambitious Creative Archive to be broad: drawin…
Creative Commons Gives the BBC Uncommon Creativity
BBC’s adopted a Creative Commons license for its Creative Archives project for archiving digital conent online…is that good and fair to th…
BBC Expands Multimedia
Reviewing offering Windows Media Player along with RealNetworks…
BBC Creative Archive Licensing to Be Based On Creative Commons
Which is not necessarily news, since BBC has been working with Creative Commons for some time now, and its digital team is in awe of Lawrenc…
BBC’s Local Stations to Stream Online
BBC will begin streaming all forty of its local radio stations on the Internet later this year. Until now local radio stations were not part…
BBC To Offer MP3 Downloads of Radio Programs
BBC’s opening up its radio broadcasts, by making some of its radio shows available as MP3 files for the first time.
The first BBC programm…
Local News Big For BBC, With Broadband
BBC Scotland is to trial the use of broadband and digital technology to deliver more local news in a shake-up of the corporation’s activitie…
BBC’s New Head Urges Broadcaster To Embrace Net
(reg. req.): Incoming BBC chairman Michael Grade hasy warned “arrogant” broadcasters they could face the same fate as the piracy-ravaged mus…
BBC Online Fights to Justify, Maintain Role as Public’s Voice
An overview of the BBCi’s funding controversy, the review, the pro and against arguments etc, issues which have been covered in detail on th…
BBC Plans For Mobile and TV Integration Via Java
This is an idea waiting to be copied: The BBC has taken a major step forward in the integration of mobile and TV, revealing plans to enable…
More Details of BBC iMP Revealed – All Content DRM’d
Something which I am not surprised by…
Background: BBC is trying to offer all its TV content online, through its Interactive Media Player…
BBCi Brand May Be Scrapped
Just two years after an expensive relaunch of its website, with a unified BBCi brand across the web and interactive TV, the corporation is p…
BBC Technology Head Sacked
The head of BBC Technology has been sacked over “misuse of hospitality” used for entertaining clients of one of the corporation’s commercial…
BBC Lines Up For Instant Repeats Online; Considering Online Gaming
I have a feeling the Guardian has taken up to doing PR for the BBC…nothing new in this story, as the details of this have been in the medi…
BBC Online’s Comissioning Process In “Chaos”
BBC commissioning of online content is sorely in need of revision, with only a “scandalous” 3 percent of the Corporation’s 2 million web pag…
BBC News Now in Broadband; Charges Fee Outside UK
BBC has launched a broadband version of its video news, free for its UK licence fee payers (Can someone access it from outside UK and let us…
Newspaper Society Joins Debate Over BBC Online
The Newspaper Society in UK has become the latest organisation to wade into the debate over BBC Online, accusing the Corporation of distorti…
Industry Demands More Outsourcing From BBC
The BBC is facing calls to give more work to external new media agencies in a move that could be worth tens of millions of pounds to the ind…
BBC Review Needs Less What-If And More What-Now
“Does it mean, as the commercial sector tends to suggest, that the [BBC] should only provide services that would be uneconomic for private c…
BBC Online Comes Under Fresh Attack
Here’s one thing I am worried about: if the rival commercial services keep attacking BBC’s online services in their own forums, the 800-poun…
BBC To Sell Its Technology Arm
The BBC is planning to sell its technology arm, whose sale would net the corporation tens of millions of pounds and would save up to £300m…
Movielink Ties Up With BBC
Movielink, the online movie service, is getting the expansion itch…from just being about movies, it is now positioning itself as @the broa…
Calls to Scrap ‘Inappropriate’ BBC Web Services
Hugo Drayton, the former Telegraph internet boss who heads the British Internet Publishers’ Alliance has called for the BBC to scrap fantasy…
BBC To Start Creative Archives With Nature Shows
Well, are you surprised? Animals don’t have agents, that’s why…and purportedly, nature programs are not commercially exploitable…
Relate…
BBCi Launches Its Citizen Activism Project Today
BBC has launched its much-touted citizen activism site iCan in beta today. “If the project succeeds, it’ll be a big deal in the world of jou…
BBC’s iTV Rethink Spurs Management Shake-Up
BBC has made a management resuffle in its interactive/digital media team, close to the review of its online activities by the government…O…
Is BBC The Next Media Model?
An incredibly naive essay by Danny O’Brien on BBC’s Creative Archives…and two months too late…
BBCNews.com Launches first European Marketing Push
The BBC is launching its first ever European advertising campaign to promote its online international news service, BBCNews.com, on the back…
TV’s Tipping Point: Why The Digital Revolution Is Only Just Beginning
Ashley Highfield, Director of BBC New Media & Technology, spoke at the Royal Television Society, yesterday: “Future TV will may be unrecogni…
Problems Galore With BBC’s Creative Archives
As reported here first, BBC Creative Archives will be a tough one to pull off…Guardian picks up on my thread and reports that the problems…
BIPA on BBC’s Online Review
Hugo Drayton, managing director of Hollinger Telegraph New Media, and the chairman of British Internet Publishers’ Alliance: [Talking about…
BBC Creative Archives: A Recheck
Will Creative Archives prove to be a dud? It may…right now it is vaporware, for most part. At a panel at the “Content Matters” conference…
Media Call For BBC Internet Curbs
Commercial media companies in UK are to ask the Government for tough restrictions to be placed on the BBC’s internet activities, including a…
BBC’s Looking to Offer Archive Over P2P
BBC has revealed that its plans to open up its archives online includes the use of peer-to-peer file sharing for the distribution of its pro…
Lawrence Lessig: The BBC’s Lessons for America
Lawrence Lessig on BBC’s announcement on opening up archives online: “As the BBC understands, it does not live in Disney World. And in the c…
Why The BBC Has A Right To Be Interactive
“Let’s not crucify the BBC on the false altar of national unity and let’s not neuter BBCi on a simplistic view of consumer welfare… it wou…
Auntie Opens Her Drawers
(In case you hadn’t noticed, I am doing blanket coverage of the BBC Online controversy, on two fronts: one is the review of BBC’s online spe…
The Controversial History of BBC Online
A very good overview article by The Register, on the controversial history of BBC’s online projects…
Tory Statement on BBC Online Misrepresented
Now this: the statement reported in the press (including Guardian) yesterday that the Tories would close BBC’s online operations if they cam…
Auntie’s Digital Revelation
“Why isn’t the BBC worried about Napster-like file-sharing networks, when other media companies are screaming for the blood of the online pi…
Can BBC Really Do It?
“How much of the Beeb’s voluminous output could it really put online? It would be easy for the BBC to put its future programming online, but…
Tories Would Close BBC Website If Elected
The Conservative party in UK would switch off a swath of the BBC’s digital services, including its website and the youth channel BBC3, if it…
BBC Online’s Review Starts: Roundup
BBC Story: An official review of the BBC’s online services will be conducted by former Trinity Mirror chief executive Philip Graf…The revi…
BBC To Open Its Full Archives Online
In an ambitious move bound to create a lot of controversy in UK, Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC announced plans to give the public f…
BBC Defends Internet Operations
The BBC has submitted a robust defence of its online operations to the government ahead of an impending review, drawing on a newly commissio…
Exclusive: BBC to Offer Subscription Service on RealOne in U.S.
Slight Correction: BBC is still debating whether to go it alone in U.S. (not part of RealNetworks), OR offer a more comprehensive subscripti…
BBC To Deliver Mobile News In China
BBC Worldwide and China’s largest website, Sina.com have tied up that will enable Chinese mobile users to receive a topical daily e-mail fro…
BBC To Close “Redundant” Websites
Some of the BBC’s websites are likely to close as the corporation cuts back on its online investment. After several years of explosive growt…
BBC Launches Indian Text Message Service
BBC is extending its news text service to India’s 4 million mobile phone users, in a deal with mobile phone company Orange. BBC will provide…
BBC to Charge Heavy Online Users?
(via TEoF): BBC Online may be considering charging for content from heavy users of its website. The online unit of the Beeb is a commercial…
