BBC Online - part one

The BBC is the 5th ranked Internet property in the UK, behind Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and eBay. It is our top native destination online with 10.5 million users in July according to Nielsen Netratings. In the US it attracts a similar number of users (9.2 million in July) but the US being bigger, the BBC only ranks 71st (although it is the top-ranked UK site by a long way). The BBC's reach online has been growing steadily:

Over a series of postings I want to address the following questions:

1. What has the BBC been doing online lately, tactically?
2. What is the strategy behind these moves?
3. What trends in the Internet industry are relevant to the BBC?
4. How successful can the BBC be?
5. What are the biggest risks and opportunities that the BBC faces?

[when I say the BBC, I usually mean the BBC's online portfolio].

Today I will start with question 1, what the BBC has been doing lately. Here are some of the news stories reporting the BBC's activities:

• BBC Will Trial iMedia Player This Year
• BBC iMP: Public Trial For 5,000 In September
• BBC announces iMP content trial
• BBC building TV download store
• BBC hits back at criticism over GBP220m increase in new-media spend
• BBC plans major investment in new media
• Every Beethoven Symphony to download...
• Beethoven - a question
• BBC eases rules on news feed use
• BBC backstage
• BBC's download servers rocking and rolling
• Beethoven Delivers More Than 600,000 Digital Downloads
• BBC digital arm sold to venture group
• BBC flogs Broadcast div
• BBC Preps Online TV Premier
• BBC Takes A Step Towards Broadcatching?
• How Dare The BBC Introduce New Listeners To Beethoven
• BBC may sell shows over internet
• BBC ready to start selling online advertising spaces
• BBC to Sell Online Ads, Content
• BBC World applies local targeting for global ads
• BBC to create Boots iTV Christmas ads
• The BBC Tries Over-the-Air "Network DVR"

The common threads behind their Internet activities?

• Backstage, a "developer network".
• Podcasting.
• Exploring how to sell ads and content to non-UK users.
• Push for RSS and allowing other sites to use BBC feeds.
• Online broadcasting of TV content.
• Big increase in new media spend.
• Paid download store - like iTunes for TV/radio content.

Next BBC post will be about what this all means... as I piece that together, it is also relevant to say that the BBC already runs a very successful radio-on-demand service, and an underwhelming community/forums service.