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BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and BBC Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the children's sites CBBC and CBeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize and Own It. The BBC has had an online presence supporting its TV and radio programmes and web-only initiatives since April 1994, but did not launch officially until 28 April 1997, following government approval to fund it by TV licence fee revenue as a service in its own right. Throughout its history, the online plans of the BBC have been subject to competition and complaint from its commercial rivals, which has resulted in various public consultations and government reviews to investigate their claims that its large presence and public funding distorts the UK market.
The website has gone through several branding changes since it was launched. Originally named BBC Online, it was rebranded as BBCi (which itself was the brand name for interactive TV services) before being named bbc.co.uk. It was then renamed BBC Online again in 2008, although the service uses the branding "BBC".
On 26 February 2010 The Times claimed that Mark Thompson, then Director General of the BBC, proposed that the BBC's web output should be cut by 50%, with online staff numbers and budgets reduced by 25% in a bid to scale back BBC operations and allow commercial rivals more room. "BBC signals an end to era of expansion" 26 February 2010 Retrieved 26 February 2010 On 2 March 2010, the BBC reported that it would cut its website spending by 25% and close BBC 6 Music and Asian Network. "BBC Proposes Deep Cuts in Web Site" 2 March 2010 Retrieved 2 March 2010 On 24 January 2011, the confirmed cuts of 25% were announced, leaving a £34 million shortfall. This resulted in the closure of several sites, including BBC Switch, BBC Blast, 6-0-6, and the announcement of plans to sell the Douglas Adams created site h2g2.
Within 12 months, the BBC website offered "Auntie" online discussion groups; web pages for select web-related programs and BBC departments; free web pages for associate members.
The BBC Multimedia Centre was a team led by Martin Freeth to introduce new media across the corporation.
As well as the licence fee funded www.bbc.co.uk, BBC Worldwide launched the commercially funded beeb.com, featuring mostly entertainment focused content, with sites including Radio Times, Top Gear and Top of the Pops. The development of these services formed the basis of a three-year agreement between BBC Worldwide and International Computers Limited, intended to assist the former in exploiting commercial opportunities in the "new medium" of the consumer Internet, while permitting the latter to gain commercial and technical experience and to position itself as a supplier to the media industry. Later, BBC Online launched licence-fee funded web sites for Top of the Pops and Top Gear, resulting in some duplication.
Beeb.com was later refocussed as an online shopping guide, and was closed in 2002. beeb.com later redirected to the BBC Shop website, run by BBC Worldwide.
In 1999, the BBC bought the bbc.com domain name, previously owned by Boston Business Computing, for $375,000, but the price of this purchase was not revealed until six years later. BBC blew $375k on bbc.com. The Register , www.bbcnc.org.uk no longer exists.
As part of the rebrand, BBC website pages all displayed a standard navigation bar across the top of the screen, offering category-based navigation: Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, A-Z Index and a search function. The navbar was designed to offer a similar navigation system to the i-bar on BBCi interactive television.
On 14 December 2007, a beta version of a new bbc.co.uk homepage was launched, with the ability to customise the page by adding, removing and rearranging different categories, such as 'News', 'Weather' and 'Entertainment'. The Web widget-based design was inspired by sites such as Facebook and iGoogle, and allowed the BBC to add new content to the homepage while still retaining users' customisations. A Lick of Paint for the BBC Homepage, bbc.co.uk, 13 December 2007 The new homepage also incorporated the clock design used in the 1970s on the BBC's television service into the large header and a box containing featured content of the website. The new BBC homepage left beta on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 to serve as the new BBC Homepage under the same URL as the previous version.
On 30 January 2010, a new webpage design became available as a beta version, that by May 2010, replaced the old homepage. This homepage expanded on the modules idea and the customisation theme. The website allowed certain themes that interested the viewer to be tracked, via a new module. It also included a new 'Media Zone' where featured content could be displayed, with this new featured box being located across the entire top of the webpage, below the header. The Media Zone was also changed so that the content changed by running the mouse over the tabs. The header was again changed to include the headings of the major sections of the website, these being: Home, News, BBC Sport, BBC Weather, iPlayer, BBC Television, BBC Radio and more, spread out evenly across the header. This new header was included across the entire website. Despite the cosmetic appearance of the relaunch, the new website was actually relaunched using a completely different operating system, allowing the site's four different international versions to be more easily altered. It also brought their website layouts and operations closer to that of the main website.
Following the launch of the new BBC News website, which altered the header bar on that site, in October 2010, the new style of header was launched across the whole website, starting off with some of the larger, yet not obvious, sites, such as Doctor Who, first before relaunching all of the sites, including the homepage with the new look. This new style of header included the headings as before, but with the search box redesigned and aligned right, as with the links which are significantly smaller. Other links, such as BBC id login and mobile versions of the website also appear on the header, just to the right of the smaller BBC logo.
On 21 September 2011, a new BBC homepage went into beta testing that was drastically different from those before it. The new homepage was based on feedback that stated that the current page was too narrow in focus and not distinctive enough, with the homepage not displaying the full extend of the BBC Online site and that some did not realise it was the homepage. As a result, they launched a new version that featured as a centrepiece a revolving carousel of content on the BBC Online website, with filters beneath to restrict it to, and to show more of entertainment, lifestyle, knowledge and news and sports topics. At the top of the page, a new header has been inserted giving the date, the time through the use of the vintage BBC clock, as well as weather prospects for the next three days through the use of the traditional weather symbols. Below the carousel, boxes contain links to the most popular video material, web articles and pages on the site, as well as TV and Radio listings alongside an A-Z list of the BBC's top level domains. This new site replaced the previous one on 30 November 2011. In a blog post from the same day, James Thornett explained the changes – while the post attracted complaints from users disliking the refreshed layout, the new-look site was critically acclaimed and nominated by the Design Museum as one of their Designs of the Year in 2012. It also won a Peabody Award in 2011 because it "continued, expanded and enhanced one of the greatest traditions in electronic media." 71st Annual Peabody Awards, May 2012.
The website focuses around the primary top level domains of BBC News, BBC Sport, BBC Weather, iPlayer, BBC Television and BBC Radio. These are easily accessible from the taskbar running across the top of all current BBC Online pages. However, other top level domains are also in existence: some are available from a drop down list on the taskbar including CBBC, CBeebies, Comedy, BBC Food, Health, History, BBC Learning, BBC Music, Science and Nature, while other top level domains are only available through the A-Z index on the BBC website. These include BBC Archives, Arts & Culture, Ethics, Gardening, Parenting, Religion and Travel news. However, there are many more top level domains – some 400 in March 2010 however this number has decreased as top level domains now frequently link to a lower domain name – that link to websites for individual services or programmes.
BBC Programmes is a service of BBC Online which provides a page for every television and radio programme broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom. It was launched in October 2007 and gives each programme an eight or eleven digit identifier which is used to provide a permanent URL. It currently only holds data from the launch date plus a selection of high-profile programmes (notably Natural History programmes and Radio 4 programmes), but Jana Bennett, Director of BBC Vision, said in June 2008 that the BBC will eventually add a page for each programme it has broadcast over its history to the service.
BBC Programmes is available as HTML and RDF/XML and JSON.
The BBC Programme Catalogue is an internal archive of the BBC back catalogue which was briefly available online to the public in beta.
For example, the BBC Food site contains recipes featured on various BBC cookery programmes, the History site has an interactive timeline of key events and individuals, the Nature site contains a database of creatures, and the Language site teaches phrases and more in 40 languages. Included in this range was the well received Your Paintings website that catalogued every painting in public ownership for view.
Until 2013, the BBC also hosted a health website with detailed information, checked by professionals, of medical conditions and symptoms. However, the BBC withdrew the site as this service is available from other sources on the Internet which did not exist when the Health site launched, the most prominent of which is NHS Choices.
In addition to these subsites, the BBC also runs sites dedicated to education and learning. These include the Bitesize revision website for teenagers and a section with resources for teachers including Learning Zone Class Clips that provides video from educational programmes for use in the classroom.
The BBC plans to merge this content into one easier to access site in the foreseeable future.
BBC Own It is an offshoot that provides online safety advice for parents, teachers, and young people to help them make positive choices online. It follows in the footsteps of other online safety services such as Internet Matters and Childnet.
In conjunction with the Children's subsite, the BBC also runs an online revision website using the Bitesize brand and also ran a message board for students. This latter service, now called "BBC Student Life" and previously called "Onion Street", was launched in 2001 and is aimed at young people between the ages of 11 and 16. The site offers a pre-moderated forum discussion on school work, revision and other areas of learning.
The BBC previously ran a page to help young people sort out their life difficulties entitled "Your Life".[6] The page featured agony uncle "Ask Aaron", a professional psychotherapist who provided regular answers to children's questions across the message boards; after the page's closure, the agony uncle has moved on to Radio One's Sunday Surgery as their mental health expert.
There is integration between television output and website content with aspects of children's programming have follow-up information on their websites.
Blast worked with a number of national partners to put on events and give teenagers' content a chance to be used at a higher level. These included the Victoria and Albert Museum, RSC, National Portrait Gallery, National Theatre, Zoo Nation, and the British Film Institute.
On 24 January 2011, the BBC announced the closure of BBC Blast as part of a 25% cut to the BBC Online budget, resulting in a £34 million shortfall.
On 15 July 2005, the BBC announced that the site was closing as of the end of the month, although the Doctor Who section would be unaffected as the series was an ongoing BBC concern. The announcement explained that this was "part of the restructuring of the BBC's online activities". It was promised that some of the content would be moved to new places on bbc.co.uk, although as of January 2017 it is currently still all online at the no-longer-updated Cult site. In recent years, some of the content covered in the Cult section was included in the BBC's Archive section, such as content and information on the 25th Anniversary of Children's BBC.
In 2006, the BBC began making controversial plans to raise revenue by including advertising on the international version of BBC News Online accessed from outside the United Kingdom. BBC urged to resist website ads BBC News Online. 16 February 2007 BBC Online is currently freely available worldwide (via various URLs including bbc.com/news) but planned video services and a lower than expected licence fee settlement paid for by UK residents only led to the BBC introducing banner advertisements to the site from November 2007. BBC's global website to carry ads BBC News Online. 18 October 2007 The BBC Trust approved the plans for introducing advertisements which also involved creating bbc.com as a part of BBC Worldwide. BBC Trust approval for BBC to implement its 'bbc.com' proposals BBC Trust. 18 October 2007 Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the Trust, confirmed the BBC would not charge for online news following News International's planned introduction of charges for online content. BBC Trust dampens Worldwide's plans for global domination Nick Clark. The Independent. 25 November 2009
Prior to this there had been criticism from some, as web users outside the UK could use the services (including the entire BBC radio services) without having to pay for them. Q&A: Adverts on BBC website Torin Douglas. BBC News Online. 21 February 2007 In addition, where rights to sporting events (such as certain football or cricket matches) do not include international online coverage, users from outside the UK are blocked from listening to commentaries.
On 24 January 2011, it was announced that the BBC was to cut its online budget by 25% or £34 million. To cope with this, many BBC websites would be closed including BBC Switch, BBC Blast, 6-0-6, BBC raw, Video Nation, and planned to sell the Douglas Adams created website h2g2, as well as the automation of many programme websites and radio websites.
Initially streams were generally broadcast in the RealAudio and RealVideo formats controlled by RealNetworks and the BBC drew criticism with some for using those closed formats which, at the time, could only be played using RealPlayer. In response to such criticisms, the BBC negotiated a deal with RealNetworks a 'cut-down' version of RealPlayer which did not contain as much advertising and marketing.
Windows Media has also been adopted and since Autumn 2006, a Windows Media stream of all national BBC radio stations has been available.
More recently, the BBC has been experimenting with MP3 downloads and facilities for an increasing number of radio shows, with a high level of success; a less publicised trial of Ogg Vorbis streams for certain programmes was less successful, and has now been discontinued.
During major events, the BBC often features liveblogging which publish the most recent text and image posts from BBC correspondents; particularly significant political events may pair live blogs with live video streams or recorded video loops relevant to the event.
In November 2011, the BBC launched the Connected Studio initiative which resulted in the running of workshops for independent web designers to work with the BBC in conceiving new designs and ways for current BBC services to be improved.
The review was published in July 2004 and it was recommended that the BBC "prioritise news, current affairs, education and information which is of value to the citizen." In response the BBC also shut down a small number of sections of the site, including the Soaps section.
In November 2004, the Governors of the BBC announced a newer, much more tightly drawn remit for bbc.co.uk as part of their response to the review. They also announced, as Graf had recommended, a new approach towards external providers which will see bbc.co.uk aiming to spend at least 25% of its eligible budget on content and services through independent commissions by the end of 2006/07.
The implementation of the Graf report has seen the popular message boards in the BBC Sport section shut down, as the BBC tries to promote its 606 brand, but these changes have proved unpopular as the interface has proven unusable and large numbers of content providers have abandoned the BBC site.
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