The
plans build on opportunities created by new and emerging digital
technologies and confront the challenges of seismic shifts in public
expectations, lifestyle and behaviours and on building new
relationships with audiences and individual households.
Ten
teams have, for the past year, been exploring what the world may be
like in 2012, what audiences may need and want and what the BBC needs
to do about it.
Key recommendations
include:
* Relaunching the BBC's
website to include more personalisation, richer audio-visual and user
generated content
*
Create a new teen brand delivered via existing broadband, TV and radio
services, including a new long-running drama and comedy, factual and
music content
* Create easy access points for audiences via
broadband portals around key content areas like Sport, Music, Knowledge
Building, Health and Science
* Start commissioning more 360 degree cross-platform content
*
Shift energy and resource into continuous news on TV, radio, broadband
and mobile, making News 24 the centre of the TV offering, moving talent
to it and breaking stories on it
* Improve the quality of Sports and Entertainment journalism and
appoint a specialist Sports Editor
*
Create one single, pan-platform BBC Music Strategy and develop big
events like this Autumn's first BBC Electric Proms as well as more
personalisation enabling people to create the equivalent of their own
radio station
* Take entertainment seriously, learn from the world of video games and
experiment with commissioning for new platforms
*
In Drama – create fewer titles with longer runs, find
creative space
for outstanding writers and cherish the programmes audience love best
like EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City
* In Comedy – improve the
creative pipeline across all platforms, pilot more shows, find new
talent and build the big hits for BBC ONE
* Give sharper age
targets to the CBeebies and CBBC brands and integrate all children's
content – including online and radio - under these brands
* Pilot
a Knowledge Building online project called Eyewitness –
History
enabling people to record and share their memories and experiences of
any day over the last 100 years
Delivering the Royal Television Society's Fleming Memorial Lecture this
evening BBC Director-General Mark Thompson will say:
"There's
a big shock coming. The second wave of digital will be far
more
disruptive than the first and the foundations of traditional media will
be swept away, taking us beyond broadcasting. The BBC needs a creative
response to the amazing, bewildering, exciting and inspiring changes in
both technology and expectations.
"On-demand changes
everything. It means we need to rethink the way we conceive,
commission, produce, package and distribute our content. This isn't
about new services it's about doing what we already do differently.
"The
BBC should no longer think of itself as a broadcaster of TV and radio
and some new media on the side. We should aim to deliver public service
content to our audiences in whatever media and on whatever device makes
sense for them, whether they are at home or on the move.
"We
can deliver much more public value when we think across all platforms
and consider how audiences can find our best content, content that's
more relevant, more useful and more valuable to them.
"I see a unique creative opportunity. This new digital world is a
better world for public service content than the old one.
"Better
because great content will now be available forever. Better because
finding it will no longer depend on being in front of the TV or radio
at exactly the right moment. Better because, in areas like Knowledge
Building, the new digital media will allow a far deeper, richer offer
than the BBC has ever been able to deliver before.
"There has
never been a better moment to be a public service programme maker -
there has never been a better moment to be a public service viewer,
listener or user."
Mr Thompson said some of Creative
Future could be achieved through existing resources, efficiencies and
cutting overheads, but not all. "A strategy which concentrates
uncompromisingly on content of the highest quality costs a great deal
more than one which mixes outstanding output with repeats and content
of low ambition.
"That's why the BBC's bid for more resources
to make quality content is the most important line in the whole
licence-fee submission. It's what the public wants and expects."
Mr
Thompson had earlier told staff around the UK and internationally that
the Creative Future plan provided a map for the on-demand future where
compelling, content, easier navigation and greater audience
understanding were essential. "We need to focus on making great
creative content which our audiences love and is relevant to their
lives. It is that simple."
But he also warned that unless the
BBC worked harder to reach younger audiences and those that felt
increasingly distant more effectively, the BBC could lose a generation
forever.
"Audiences have enormous choice and they like
exercising it. But many feel the BBC is not tuned into their lives. We
need to understand our audiences far better, to be more responsive,
collaborative and to build deeper relationships with them around
fantastic quality content."
The plans have emerged from the
year-long Creative Future project, sponsored by Mr Thompson and the
BBC's Creative Director Alan Yentob.
The project has involved
hundreds of people across the BBC, the independent sector and other
industry partners, underpinned by one of the largest audience research
and insight initiatives the BBC has ever undertaken.
Ten teams
have, for the past year, been exploring what the world may be like in
2012, what audiences may need and want and what the BBC needs to do
about it.
Two pieces of work around Audiences and the Beyond
Broadcast world, which covered technology and market developments,
informed and shaped thinking in all the other content teams -
Journalism, Music, Children's & Teens, Sport, Drama,
Entertainment,
Comedy and Knowledge Building.
Key recommendations by
genre
Journalism
A
new pan platform journalism strategy, including mobile devices, is
already underway, putting 24/7 news on the web, broadband, TV and radio
at its heart for unfolding stories as well as analysis.
BBC News 24 has been moved centre stage on TV and key talent are moving
to it.
Sport and Entertainment journalism will be improved. Responsiveness and
authenticity are important qualities to audiences.
Current
affairs will be reshaped and BBC News will work with the education
sector to get BBC journalism into secondary schools across the country
through initiatives like Schools Question Time.
Sport
Creating
a BBC Sport broadband portal with live video and audio, journalism,
specialist sports and interactive comment, which builds on the recent
success of the Winter Olympics and reflects the diversity of sport
across the nations and regions of the UK.
Launching a new
flagship Sports News programme on TV, appointing a BBC Sports Editor
and phasing out 'portfolio' programmes like Grandstand, a brand which
no longer has impact, in favour of BBC Sport branded live events and
highlights.
Music
For
the first time, a single BBC music strategy across all platforms, with
regular cross platform events like this Autumn's Electric Proms,
including TV Music Entertainment and commissioning in Radio &
Music.
The aim is be the premier destination for unsigned bands and to seize
the opportunities of broadband, podcasting and mobile.
Kids & Teens
All
children's output, including radio, online and learning will eventually
be consolidated under the CBeebies and CBBC brands which will be given
tighter audiences targets – up to 6 and 7-11 years
respectively.
Create a broadband based teen brand aimed at 12-16 years, including a
high volume drama, comedy, music and factual content.
Comedy
Developing
the creative pipeline for comedy across all radio and TV networks
–
local and national - and kickstarting contemporary sitcoms by
increasing the number of pilots, investing more in rehearsal time and
script development, maximising access through new media and
experimenting with bespoke content.
Improving training,
nurturing talent, relaunching the comedy website and holding an annual
BBC Comedy day for those involved in creating comedy for the BBC.
Drama
Intensifying
the pace, energy and emotion of TV dramas, such as the award-winning
Bleak House or The Street currently on BBC ONE, while continuing to
cherish the big runners like EastEnders and Casualty that audiences
love.
Creating more writer-led radio landmarks, opting for
fewer TV titles with longer runs and higher audience value, supporting
single dramas and writers and experimenting with the drama inherent in
gaming and interactive – such as the online drama Jamie Kane.
Entertainment
Deliver
more consistent, braver, high production value entertainment on
Saturday nights on BBC ONE, plus at least two stripped entertainment
events on the channel each year.
More effective piloting,
cross media commissioning and closer collaboration with other genres
like factual and leisure to build top shows of the future like The
Apprentice - from factual entertainment.
Knowledge Building
BBC
content which documents the world and inspires audiences to explore,
learn and contribute should come as one proposition and be available
permanently after transmission. Knowledge Building content should be as
big an offer from the BBC as BBC News.
The appeal to people's
interests and passions has a long term value so the BBC will rethink
its approach, pan platform, to key areas like Natural History, Health
and Technology.
It will also pilot Eyewitness – a national
grid marking every day over the last 100 years –giving anyone
with a
story to tell about a particular day the chance to record and share
their memories with others.
Consistent themes emerged
across the different teams and shaped their recommendations
Cross platform content
and commissioning
Building
on big ideas and events that can work across platforms as well as on
linear channels, while meeting specialist interests via on-demand.
It
will mean a different approach to commissioning and integrating key
output areas. This will mean following BBC News' multi platform example
in Sport, Music, Children's and Knowledge Building content.
Stronger emotional
connections
Audiences
want more than facts. They also want to be seriously entertained
through Drama, Entertainment and Comedy, but also through factual
programmes.
Findability
On-demand
means content has to have proper labelling (metadata) or it will be
hard to find and of no long term value to audiences. Better search
tools, branding and navigation are essential, as are clear portals for
big content areas like Sport, Music, Natural History, Leisure and
Health.
The Young
The
audiences of tomorrow currently get too little of real value from the
BBC. The BBC needs to think how it engages them and reflect their lives
better.
Active audiences
Increasingly,
audiences of all ages not only want the choice of what to watch and
listen to when they want, they also expect to take part, debate, create
and control. Interactivity and user generated content are increasingly
important stimuli for the creative process.
Mr Thompson said these and more detailed recommendations in each area
were just the beginning of creative renewal.
Mr
Thompson said these and more detailed recommendations in each area were
just the beginning of creative renewal and would be facilitated by
other important initiatives.
These include: feeding more
audience insights and research into the creative process and developing
new cross platform measurements; also putting technology and its
potential at the heart of creative thinking; developing a pan BBC
rights strategy; launching a more powerful search tool as
bbc.co.uk
is upgraded, cracking metadata labelling as a priority and ensuring
that the BBC is organisationally and culturally ready to make the
Creative Future recommendations real.
