Digital, Interactive and Web TV
Players, Content Providers

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BBC

The BBC is investing £285m in digital TV and has launched over 6 digital services in the last year both on its own channels and via the other service providers. In June 99 it launched BBC Knowledge at a cost of £10m with a young target audience. Viewers will be encouraged to interact via the Internet and their responses will be fed back into the programmes. It was also proposing a special digital licence fees payable by all digital viewers what ever medium they receive their programmes. A figure of £24 was suggested but in the end the Government refused, saying the BBC must fund its digital services out of efficiency savings and by generating new revenue streams (see controversy). Existing revenue streams that could easily be expanded are BBC News 24, BBC Online and Bee.com, its commercial internet arm. The BBC is said to be looking for partners to inject £100m. There is also a huge potential to offer e-commerce linked to its TV programmes, for example, selling home decorating books and materials linked to the Good Homes programme. Already BBC's www.bbc.co.uk web site, which is funded through the licence fee, is the UK's 4th most popular web site.

With the BBC seen as a great and trusted institution there must be opportunities to jointly deliver Government information and services via digital TV as part of the Government's modernising Britain programme. This aims to have nearly  all Government services available on-line by 2010. The commercial TV companies have already indicated they would want to be involved in such initiatives.

Whilst the BBC may be investing in the technology it appears to be losing out in the content and presentation. The broadcasting rights to most major sporting events have moved to the commercial channels, notably BSkyB. The BBC says that as it is spending public money it cannot justify the huge fees now being commanded. As an example, in June 2000 the BBC failed to win any bids for Premier League football though the next day it purchased from BSkyB the broadcasting rights to FA matches for £400m. This is over £300m more than the previous £96m deal. Whilst the lack of funds arguement is valid, some of the sporting organisers have said that the BBC is lacking imagination in the use of the new technology. Commercial channels were quicker to cross link the TV broadcasts to the Internet and other information channels. They provided more interactivity and they provided educational information so that the sports were accessible to a wide audience.

The BBC Resources, a commercial arm of the BBC, announced in May 2001 an alliance with BMPtvi to produce interactive advertisments. BMPtvi has expertise in digital TV advertising, account management and media planning. The BBC has already worked on interactive TV projects with British Gas, HSBC bank and ITV Digital.

BBC WorldWide is another commercial operation. Activities include selling BBC programmes abroad and to companies offering video-on-demand. It has a joint venture with Flextech - now part of Telewest - called UKTV. UKTV owns the commercial channels UK Gold and UK Living and is planning to launch UK Food later in 2001. In 2001 BBC Worldwide generated £96m profit for the BBC and plans to increase this to £200m by 2006. Such an expansion is likely to result in even more protests from commercial media companies. The Davis report into the funding of the BBC recommended that the division be privatised though the chief executive of the division is against the idea.

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a hybrid. It is commercial organisation that operates in the public sector and is owned by the government. We have included it in the next section on Independent Television Companies.

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External Resources

See External Resources on the Players, Content Providers page for references up to 27 June 2000.

1. Jury, Louise, & Garrett, Jade, 2001, BBC goes into advertising with joint venture, The Independent, 30 May 2001.
2. Rees, Jon, 2001, Sell, sell, sell gives BBC £96m boost, Sunday Business, 8 July 2001.
3. See the full list of resources for this web site for other related resources.

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