Reportr.net

The BBC has published the service licences that bind the controllers of the BBC’s eight TV channels, 16 radio services, its website, interactive service and digital education service.

The licences are set by the BBC Trust, the new independent body responsible for governing the corporation, and come into effect at the start of 2007.

The online service licence makes for interesting reading. The phrasing implies that the Trust sees the internet as a add-on to television and radio, rather than as a new, separate medium in its own right.

From the licence:

“bbc.co.uk should publish content which it creates as a natural
consequence of television or radio production. It should combine the BBC’s major broadcast initiatives and output with published, interactive and user-generated content, forming part of cross-media propositions which contribute to the promotion of the five public purposes. It should provide content based directly on original television and radio programmes, plus context for programmes and tools, such as navigation.”

This would seem to imply that online content has to be tied to TV and radio output. There is some ambiguity as the licence goes on to say:

“bbc.co.uk should explore new ways of exploiting the unique characteristics of the internet to provide innovative and distinctive entertainment content and services, originated specifically for the internet.”

This suggests that online services should be in the business of creating original material. What is unclear is whether this has to be related to what TV and radio are up to and be directly related to those broadcast activities.

Perhaps the answer is in how its remit is defined. The licence talks about creating “distinctive propositions that reflect and extend the range of the BBC’’s broadcast services.”

From this, it is clear that the BBC Trust see the internet as complementary to the TV and radio, rather than as an emerging communications platform that deserves to be approached as a new medium.