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BBC3 outlines channel shift to online-only model

"This is not moving a TV channel and putting it online. This is new," says the BBC, ahead of controversial move.

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2014-03-07_0132In what is likely to be viewed with some scrutiny by Australian broadcasters, the BBC has further outlined its closure of youth channel BBC3 as a terrestrial channel and moving its content to an online-only platform.

The channel, which features new UK comedy, current affairs and documentaries for young adult audiences, is shifting online to save over £50 million a year, but the moves must still be approved by the BBC Trust.

BBC Three online will continue its content strategies but will also “develop new forms, formats, different durations, and more individualised and interactive content.”

Damian Kavanagh, BBC Three Proposal Lead said, “Our proposal is to re-invent BBC Three for the digital age and to take risks with ideas, talent and technology. We want to take what’s great about BBC Three and what’s great about digital and merge the two, to give audiences something of the digital world, not just in it. This is not moving a TV channel and putting it online. This is new. We are the first broadcaster in the world to propose something like this.”

BBC Director-General Tony Hall says: “With the licence fee frozen we’ve had to make difficult decisions – and none more so than our proposal to move BBC Three online. In rising to this challenge, we’ve managed to come up one of the most exciting and ambitious proposals I’ve seen since I came back to the BBC.

“By searching out new ways to engage and entertain young audiences on their terms, the new BBC Three will be a great example of how we can reinvent the public service for the digital world – using their talent, appearing on the platforms and devices that they use and talking to them as equals and partners.”

Danny Cohen, BBC Director of Television, says: “As a former BBC Three Controller this genuinely wasn’t an easy decision but if ever there’s proof that necessity is the mother of invention, I believe it’s today’s proposal. I didn’t want to makes savings by simply salami-slicing again across the board in BBC Television – for me that wasn’t an option.

“I’m truly very excited about the plans we are developing, both in terms of what they will mean for the future of BBC Three and what we can learn to drive the whole of the BBC forward in a time of relentless digital and technological change. I don’t want us to sit back as a legacy company and watch as generational change bites away at our impact – I want us to be at the forefront of that change.”

The change is set for third quarter 2015.

7 Responses

  1. @Pertinax, it doesn’t help BBC3’s ratings that as soon as something on it becomes popular, it is generally shifted to BBC1 or BBC2.

    ABC2’s ratings aren’t that far behind those of SBS1. They’re pretty much the same as all the commercial multichannels except 7TWO and GO!

  2. But if hardly anybody under 40 is watching the content on BBC3 what is the point in making it? So they may as well try this.

    It’s the same problem ABC2 and SBS2 have, along with the fact they both competing head to head for the same lack of viewers.

  3. They’re not actually saving any transmission costs terrestrially, because they’re carrying BBC One +1 instead.

    If the same number of people watch BBC3’s programming online as they did on TV, transmission costs will increase.

    The money saved comes from cutting programming investment, most of which went into commissioning original UK content.

    The channel’s programs are already available to UK viewers online through iPlayer, distribution wise, all that’s changing is that they’ll no longer have the choice to watch them via certain platforms.

    So all in all, it’s a case of less, not more. “This is not moving a TV channel and putting it online,” it’s something resulting in less than that.

  4. Jezza, I can only hope you’re being sarcastic. Going online just makes people spend more, which is great if you’re a company that does that. But it’s ultimately worse off for consumers.
    Hopefully the BBC Trust refuses to support this.

  5. Just when Apple are considering fitting a TV Tuner to the next iPhone!
    Where are the savings? Surely not from the transmitters electricity bill!
    No mention of “free download”.
    With a target audience of young people this is what they don’t need…a bigger download bill!
    Are you listening Malcolm Turnbull, free download for C31?

  6. It sure seems like moving a TV channel and putting it online (plus a few other things). Does he really think his audiences are that stupid that they will believe the spin?

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