BBC
BBC’s digital channels criticised by independent review
MUMBAI: A British government advisor Patrick Barwise has criticised four digital channels of the BBC for targeting niche UK audiences..
The report concluded that the beeb is wasting millions of pounds of licence fee payers’ money on channels that hardly anybody watches.
BBC3, BBC4, CBBC and CBeebies are failing to deliver value for the ?200m they cost in total each year the report. Barwise, of the London School of Business, was asked to look into the channels after complaints that they were diverting cash away from making good shows on BBC1 and BBC2.
On a positive note, he found that the pre-school children’s channel CBeebies was popular. “CBeebies is a triumph and an exemplary public broadcasting service service for preschool children. CBBC is a distinctive service with high quality UK-produced content free from advertisements, covering a wide range of genres and with a high proportion of original production”.
However despite hits like Little Britain and The Alan Clark Diaries, BBC3 and BBC4 were still providing poor value. “What people want from the BBC is more good programmes with broad appeal I recommend that the BBC stop thinking of BBC3 and BBC4 as niche channels.”
Weekly ratings at BBC3 and BBC4 each averaged fewer than 100,000 people, despite budgets of ?100m and ?35m respectively. The new channels should more than double their audience to justify their cost, the report said.
Britain’s culture minister Tessa Jowell, who commissioned it, said that the study would feed into a decision on the BBC’s charter, which allows it to collect ? 2.9bn a year in licence fees and is up for renewal in 2006.
MUMBAI: BBC Global News has announced a new partnership with Twitter Amplify, the social broadcast network service’s innovative video promotion tool.
This is the first Twitter Amplify partnership with a global news broadcaster. Commenting on the same, BBC global news director of digital & technology James Montgomery said, “This new collaboration harnesses our global reach and newsgathering capabilities to bring our advertising partners clever and impressive products. Building on the efforts of BBC America’s partnership with Twitter, we’re thrilled to bring our ad partners with us at the cutting edge of news.”
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BBC Global News will provide the global Twitter community timely in-tweet video clips that complement its global newsgathering operation. This partnership offers BBC Global News and its future brand partners an integrated cross-platform tool to reach new audiences on Twitter. BBC Global News operates BBC World Service radio, BBC World News television, and bbc.com/news outside the UK.
“What makes this partnership exciting is the amazing content Twitter users will get from BBC Global News, no matter where they are in the world,” said Twitter Amplify senior director Glenn Brown. “We look forward to working with BBC Global News to bring these programmes to market.”
BBC.com has already begun production of a new in-Tweet broadcast, #BBCTrending, a new series of innovative short form video broadcasts that will be presented by Anne-Marie Tomchak (@AMTomchak) and will launch later this fall. The broadcast will give users the inside story behind the latest trending phenomena on social media that day. #BBCTrending is distributed to the 4.8 million followers of the BBC international news Twitter handle, @BBCWorld, and will be enhanced by Twitter Amplify.
#BBC Trending will incorporate three key elements:
1. The BBC’s international social media reach and 24-hour video production operation
2. The BBC’s global newsgathering and monitoring operations, which provide both round the clock news reporting and monitoring of global TV, radio, press, internet and news agency sources, and
3. Twitter Amplify’s innovative real-time video promotion tool.
“Being a part of this new project is thrilling,” said Tomchak. As the face of #BBCTrending, Tomchak will be working with production units across the BBC to identify and build compelling conversations on what’s trending around the world. “On Trending, we’re tapping the most powerful internal insight tools and the massive BBC international newsgathering and language operations to decipher why and how trends are happening on social media around the world.”
In April, BBC America signed a similar deal with Twitter Amplify to offer the first in-Tweet branded video synced to hit series, including Top Gear.
