The BBC's creative future

By Bob Toovey - 09 May 2006

The British Broadcasting Corporation unveiled their new plans to totally reinvent their way of dealing with ‘consumers’ through the Internet. It is one ambitious plan. If it all goes well, every other company that deals with consumer generated content is going have to take a long hard look at what they have done and go back to the drawing board!

The BBC won praise (and website visitors) for their efforts in embracing the Internet. The website currently receives over 3.5 million page views per day and also there are plans to offer banners for non-UK visitors.

The new ‘blueprint’ has been called ‘Creative Future’ and looks to deliver more to audiences in the way of richer content to the on-demand world

“The plans build on opportunities created by new and emerging digital technologies and confront the challenges of seismic shifts in public expectations, lifestyle and behaviours and on building new relationships with audiences and individual households.”

The BBC set 10 teams to explore what the world maybe like in 2012 and to find out what audiences want and need.

Key recommendations include...

• Relaunching the BBC's website to include more personalisation, richer audio-visual and user generated content
• Create a new teen brand delivered via existing broadband, TV and radio services, including a new long-running drama and comedy, factual and music content
• Create easy access points for audiences via broadband portals around key content areas like Sport, Music, Knowledge Building, Health and Science
• Start commissioning more 360 degree cross-platform content
• Shift energy and resource into continuous news on TV, radio, broadband and mobile, making News 24 the centre of the TV offering, moving talent to it and breaking stories on it
• Improve the quality of Sports and Entertainment journalism and appoint a specialist Sports Editor
• Create one single, pan-platform BBC Music Strategy and develop big events like this Autumn's first BBC Electric Proms as well as more personalisation enabling people to create the equivalent of their own radio station
• Take entertainment seriously, learn from the world of video games and experiment with commissioning for new platforms
• In Drama – create fewer titles with longer runs, find creative space for outstanding writers and cherish the programmes audience love best like EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City
• In Comedy – improve the creative pipeline across all platforms, pilot more shows, find new talent and build the big hits for BBC ONE
• Give sharper age targets to the CBeebies and CBBC brands and integrate all children's content – including online and radio - under these brands
• Pilot a Knowledge Building online project called Eyewitness – History enabling people to record and share their memories and experiences of any day over the last 100 years

Of the most interest is the way the BBC plans to deal with News...

“Shift energy and resource into continuous news on TV, radio, broadband and mobile, making News 24 the centre of the TV offering, moving talent to it and breaking stories on it”

Will we see members of the public reporting on news stories and getting some kind of credit? Or will there be a system where the public deliver leads to stories for journalists and reports to follow up on? With that many services there is going to be a need for more input. The BBC has had criticism in the past regarding bias in reporting. Could citizen reporting help deal with this? Certainly it will help with accuracy and with issues of trust as well.

On Journalism, the key recommendation made by the team…

“A new pan platform journalism strategy, including mobile devices, is already underway, putting 24/7 news on the web, broadband, TV and radio at its heart for unfolding stories as well as analysis….”

The BBC plans to “…be more responsive, collaborative and to build deeper relationships with them around fantastic quality content." I hope this includes feed back ‘blog style’ to news reports giving their reports what News bloggers and Citizen Journalism sites are already enjoying. That is the community effort to improve accuracy, develop trust and allowing others to decided what is important. The community must lead and not large media corporations.

It seems the BBC has been listening and watching and taking notes. Can’t wait to see what happens!

The full report from the BBC can be found here

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Email (not displayed but required)

Website (ensure it starts with http://)

Comment (obviously required!)

please enter the word that you see

HTML is currently not allowed. Your email address will not be displayed but if you provide a web address it will be enabled. Please stay on topic and no blatant advertising!