BBC Downsizing: Websites, Staff Cut By A Quarter, Refocused

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BBC Downsizing: Websites, Staff Cut By A Quarter, Refocused

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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 radical retreat from several areas of media.

Putting Quality First, a strategic review drawn up to redirect £600 million a year and compete less with commercial operators, proposes cutting the corporation’s annual online budget and staff by 25 percent by 2013 - amongst many downsizing measures.

BBC Online will undergo a “full rationalisation” that will see it focus only on “quality” content (so what was it doing before??) and that allied to broadcast output. There will also be more links to commercial operators’ sites - a pledge that has already been stated and restated over the years.

Here are online highlights cribbed direct from the full review...

Many of the sites the BBC wants to close ... have already been closed…

Some sites that are currently live will be closed, such as /celebdaq, /sportdaq, /naturestop40, /lastmillionaire, /jamiekane, /bbcpartners, /openweekend, /actingup, /amiafreak

A number of sites that have already been ‘mothballed’ will also be closed, such as /amazingmrspritchard, /streetdoctor, /keyskills, /strictlydancefever, /filmfestival, /underdogshow

Some sites will be consolidated under larger audience-facing propositions, such as /history or /drama e.g., /spooks, /robinhood.

All online content should feel justified and purposeful: not extraneous or encyclopaedic, but within a distinct editorial purpose. This commitment will be backed with a new, tighter system of performance management requiring the routine ‘weeding’ of the site and the placing of its remaining content into fewer, better organised categories. Doing fewer things better means, on this strategy, significant changes to the BBC’s service portfolio:

Focusing the BBC’s website on the five content priorities

Halving the number of sections on the site and improving its quality by closing lower-performing sites and consolidating the rest

Spending 25% less on the site per year by 2013

Turning the site into a window on the web by providing at least one external link on every page and doubling monthly ‘click-throughs’ to external sites (Ed: to 20 million)

...because the BBC’s online services have become so vital to delivering its purposes, they must be held to new and higher standards of distinctiveness, efficiency and openness.

The number of sections on the site (its ‘top-level directories’, in the form bbc.co.uk/sitename) will be halved by 2012, with many sites closed and others consolidated

New investment will be in pursuit of the five content priorities only, and there will be far fewer bespoke programme websites

BBC Online will be transformed into a window on the web with, by 2012, an external link on every page and at least double the current rate of ‘click-throughs’ to external sites.

Focusing original content on BBC Online on the five content priorities only, and excluding whole categories of online activity such as web search, communications and non-content related social networking.

News Online will always be free at the point of use, free of advertising and other commercial messages, and available at home and on the move (Ed: that means in the UK)

In local online, the BBC will focus on its core editorial areas of news, sport, weather, travel and local knowledge, and improve the quality of its existing websites.

[Knowledge, music and culture] Online, the focus will be on showcasing the best of the BBC’s knowledge output, with many existing sites being merged and consolidated into a stronger offer (e.g., in Nature). Music online will aim to deepen the impact of major events (e.g., Proms, Glastonbury), guide users to the best of BBC on-air music output and provide additional context and links to the wider web

(Drama and comedy) Online, the BBC will reduce the number of bespoke programme websites, relying more on automated programme pages. Where it does invest, it will do so only for high-quality shows with real audience impact.

(Sport) . Online will also be the primary platform for coverage of Olympic sports in the run-up to 2012, as well as providing an archival legacy beyond the Games

Further changes include:

BBC News Online focusing its specialist analysis and interpretation on a generalist, not specialist, audience

Refocusing the entertainment news category to reflect a more serious, concise agenda with stronger coverage of the media industry, culture and the arts

Restricting local sites in England to news, sport, weather, travel and local knowledge (where ‘local knowledge’ means supporting BBC initiatives such as Coast and A History of the World in 100 Objects where there is local relevance, but not general feature content)

Having fewer bespoke programme sites in the knowledge category in general, consolidating remaining sites within fewer and more recognisable categories (e.g., /nature)

Removing generic content in areas such as the Recipe Finder and /film—including instead content which has featured on BBC programmes or content to which the BBC has added distinctive editorial value.
To ensure that this refocusing takes place and to extract increased efficiency, the BBC will spend 25% less on BBC Online by 2013, with a corresponding reduction in staffing levels—also reflecting the growing maturity and commoditisation of web design and technology. The BBC will also aim to share the benefits of its scale more effectively and connect more actively with the rest of the web, including by 2013:
Making sure there is at least one external link on every page of the website where editorially appropriate, making the best of what is available elsewhere online an integral part of the BBC’s offer to audiences

Doubling the number of monthly ‘click-throughs’ to external sites, from 10m a month to over 20m.

Increasing the quality of local radio: boosting investment in local news at breakfast, mid-morning and drivetime using resources released by sharing content at other times

Recommending the closure of Radio 6 Music: focusing popular music output on Radio 1 and an increasingly distinctive Radio 2, using the resources released to drive digital radio in other ways
4
• Recommending the closure of Asian Network as a national service, and using the resources
released to serve Asian audiences better in other ways
• Recommending the closure of teen offerings BBC Switch and Blast!

After the leaks, comes the facts. The BBC will cut its online budget by 25 percent by 2013, as part of wide-ranging plans to save £600 million and get off commercial operators’ front lawn.

The Putting Quality First strategic review - drawn up by BBC policy director John Tate, who previously held the same role at the Conservative party - has been submitted to the BBC Trust, which will put it out to public consultation, and was presented to staff by director general Mark Thompson on Tuesday morning.

The move clicks “undo” on the extra £30.7 million that the trust, last March 2009, approved for addition to the BBC’s then-114.4 million online budget over the next three years.

Next steps: the trust will open a consultation on the proposals, express its own view and then receive a formal application on the ideas from the BBC.

6Music and Asian Network to be shut

“will also pledge to allow commercial stations to be the main providers of popular music to listeners aged 30 to 50”

BBC Switch (cross-platform teen brand) to be shut

BBC Blast (a project to help teenagers produce creative output) to be shut

Sports rights outlay capped to 8.5 percent of licence fee income

£600 million redirected in to higher-quality content…

BBC Two budget going “up-market” by taking £25 million from the £100 million budget for imported programme buys

BBC Worldwide must focus overseas

Must sell UK magazine arm