Reportr.net

If you live outside the UK and visit BBCNews.com, you may notice something different. The site now carries advertising.

At the time of writing, I came across just one skyscraper ad (as shown on the right), linking to a FAQ explaining the decision for carrying advertising. The ad appears on the front, business, technology, Americas and Middle East indices.

The FAQ seeks to reassure readers concerned that the commercialisation of the BBC could impact the news.

We’ve introduced advertising to visitors outside of the UK because the new revenue created will allow us to further improve our journalism, our programmes and our website in the years ahead. Impartiality is of the utmost importance to us at the BBC and for this reason advertising will be clearly separated from editorial content. Advertising will not have any bearing on the news, information or programme content or create the impression of endorsement by the BBC.

The source code for the page shows that four types of ad sizes are planned:

• 728×90
• 160×600
• 468×60
• 120×240

Using something like the Firefox plugin, AdBlock Plus will strip out the ads, though the page might have some blank areas where the advertising should have been.

UPDATE: This is a screengrab of the BBCNews.com homepage with an ad in the left-hand navigation: