[RhysJR]

Speech by DG Tim Davie today on the future of the BBC. Seems a bit light on detail of if there will be cuts and what they will be. Rather comically, the feed of Tim Davie's speech cut halfway through - could easily be an allegory of the modern BBC.

www.bbc.co.uk 

BBC to meet future challenges with rigorous focus on three essential roles
In a major speech on the BBC’s future, Director-General Tim Davie said the broad…
  Source: www.bbc.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk 

A BBC For The Future
Royal Television Society address by the Director-General of the BBC
  Source: www.bbc.co.uk

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And an odd line on BBC Three.

twitter.com 

[Keith]

Speech by DG Tim Davie today on the future of the BBC. Seems a bit light on detail of if there will be cuts and what they will be. Rather comically, the feed of Tim Davie's speech cut halfway through - could easily be an allegory of the modern BBC.

www.bbc.co.uk 

www.bbc.co.uk 

Perhaps worth noting is...

One area that we will discuss with government is the World Service. It is uniquely valuable and globally important, particularly in light of the trends that I talked about earlier.

However, we cannot keep asking UK Licence Fee payers to invest in it when we face cuts to UK services. We will need to discuss a long-term funding solution for the World Service that comes from central government budgets. Even in the short-term we will need more help. Russia and China are investing hard, and not properly funding one of the UK’s most valuable soft power assets makes no sense economically or culturally.

I'm guessing this will possibly be used as leverage for additional funding, as well as the charter renewal / future of the licence fee. Arguably the BBC World Service is more of a mouthpiece for the UK government, compared to the BBC in general. I dare say there's the hint that cuts could come in this area if additional funding is not provided (or licence fee gets frozen again).

There's also the slight curious bit of...

As part of this, we will accelerate our content spend towards streaming value and away from broadcast-only output. We will deliver more value for younger audiences by focusing all our commissioning, marketing and social media activity on BBC iPlayer rather than through BBC Three’s linear channel.

Maybe this implies they're considering repurposing BBC Three to be less youth focused and more of a general channel? I dare say doing so would make it easier for if/when BBC Four closes, as well as during major sporting / live music events.

[Keith]

Going back to...

As part of this, we will accelerate our content spend towards streaming value and away from broadcast-only output. We will deliver more value for younger audiences by focusing all our commissioning, marketing and social media activity on BBC iPlayer rather than through BBC Three’s linear channel.

It's worth noting that currently www.bbc.co.uk  is the only channel page that isn't a generic iPlayer page, and has it's own articles within this section. I think it's reasonable to assume that this will likely be changing in the near future, with the page moving to be iPlayer branded as per the other BBC channel pages. Maybe it also implies a reduced social media presence for 'BBC Three', with the iPlayer brand being promoted more instead.

BBC Three | Docs, Comedies, Videos & Articles
All the latest documentaries, comedy, videos, articles and more from the award w…
  Source: www.bbc.co.uk

[interestednovice]

A lot of that (the separate editorial website, social media accounts and prominence in the BBC navbar) was a legacy of the “online only” BBC Three.

It has arguably still been needed to help promote the BBC to that demographic, but now the marketing is shifting towards iPlayer as more of a “bucket of content”, rather than specific services from the BBC, it may make sense to drop it. The website especially is unlikely to get many page views.

However, there is an argument that the BBC shoots itself in the foot with a lot of this. Things like trailers relentlessly ending with a “Watch on BBC iPlayer” sting, when in reality viewers may want to know when the programme is going to be on TV, risk alienating viewers.

[cable]

Make BBC Three into what the old BBC HD channel was and have a range of content.

[interestednovice]

Now that’s an idea!

A streaming-first BBC could be something like this…

- BBC One: the entertainment and big events channel, primary linear outlet

- BBC Two: secondary channel and alternative programming, a bit back to the roots of BBC Two and incorporating some programming from the current BBC Four, slightly more high-brow than current BBC Two to better differentiate from BBC One.

- BBC Three: live extended coverage of “events” type programming which deserves a linear outing, overspill from BBC One & BBC Two, films and some programming generally for younger people but not the whole purpose of the channel. A broader range of content than now and, potentially, a shop window to popular iPlayer content.


Alongside this;

- BBC News
- BBC Parliament
- BBC Alba
- CBeebies for young children
- BBC Red Button

All of the above list would be as-now. I would axe BBC Scotland and reintroduce BBC Two Scotland as an opt-out using the capacity.

CBBC would be an online service, including an iPlayer FAST-style stream, and BBC Four would close. Archive content would be found on iPlayer and sometimes BBC Two. Foreign dramas and other “BBC Four-type” programming could bolster BBC Two’s schedule.

BBC Three would have to be evening-only as it would share a stream with CBeebies.

[tellyblues]

Although the remit for BBC3 is ages 16-34, it already is an overspill channel and mostly aimed at everyone. Live sports, music events, and shows typically watched by older viewers such as Masterchef with spin-offs which have in part been made for them as well as the channel's intended demographic, then there's stuff like Top Gear and The Apprentice which I suppose the argument can be put across that they are popular with younger viewers but they weren't BBC3 shows to begin with.

The idea created that BBC3's sole focus is younger viewers when so much of its output is general content is clever from the BBC in a way in that it saves them money and gets more out of shows but for the 16-34s whom if it were not for them there would be no BBC3, they don't get a good deal compared to services for other demographics. CBBC and CBeebies aren't propped up by ancient repeats of shows that would appeal to a completely different audience.

[Allanbuzzy]

Arguably, I feel like BBC Three has all but become BBC Choice in not name but output. BBC Three back in the 00's put out absolute treasurable shows, and while there were a few duds here and there, it was a channel that was able to at least experiment and create wholly British-original shows.

Now, it hardly feels like it has an output of it's own. It seems to just be repeats of what you can already watch on iPlayer, and while personally I wouldn't mind the usage of Three as a "catch-up service", in many cases Doctor Who and Top Gear fans used the channel for that, BBC Choice launched... trying to find a purpose in it's existence as a digital-only channel with hardly any viewers and the only thing it could afford to do was repeat shows from BBC One and BBC Two.

It's 2023, and with BBC Three readily accessible on iPlayer, does BBC Three really serve a public need if most of it's output is just that?

[Brekkie]

Axing BBC3 made no sense, bringing it back even less sense. But now they're seemingly axing it but not acing the channel but prioritising putting content online but curating it for linear, which of course makes perfect sense - to those in W1A.

To be fair the channel still produces some good content - Boarders looks excellent, as was Wreck. Of course more are watching on iPlayer or probably during the post-news BBC1 outings.

I do think replacing BBC3/4 with a "boxset" channel could work best so new BBC3 style content is played out back to back over one or two nights then the rest of the week archive content takes priority.

[Newshound47]

A lot of that (the separate editorial website, social media accounts and prominence in the BBC navbar) was a legacy of the “online only” BBC Three.

It has arguably still been needed to help promote the BBC to that demographic, but now the marketing is shifting towards iPlayer as more of a “bucket of content”, rather than specific services from the BBC, it may make sense to drop it. The website especially is unlikely to get many page views.

However, there is an argument that the BBC shoots itself in the foot with a lot of this. Things like trailers relentlessly ending with a “Watch on BBC iPlayer” sting, when in reality viewers may want to know when the programme is going to be on TV, risk alienating viewers.

Both the BBC and ITV forget the majority of viewing is still linear and the decline from now on will be slower and mostly drawn by people dying- those who viewing is linear based are not going to switch en Mass to streaming now.