Category: 91Èȱ¬; New
Media
Date: 25.04.2006
Printable version
Background
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Creative Future has been an extensive cross-media, audience-focussed project involving hundreds of people across
the 91Èȱ¬ and key external partners.
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Its aim - to produce an editorial
blueprint for 91Èȱ¬ programmes, content and services for the emerging
on-demand world over the next 91Èȱ¬ Charter period.
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This isn't about new services but a fundamental look at the creative challenges
ahead with audiences in an on-demand environment that goes beyond
current broadcasting models.
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Director-General Mark Thompson said at the launch of Creative
Future last year: "This
project is designed to turn the purposes and objectives we set out in our
Charter manifesto Building Public Value into an inspiring editorial strategy.
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"We need to meet - and exceed - audiences' rapidly
changing expectations, make difficult choices and take calculated
risks, while maintaining our commitment to excellence and innovation."
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Ten cross divisional teams have been working on the project for the last year.
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Their findings and recommendations were presented to 91Èȱ¬ staff in the UK and
internationally on 25 April 2006 who emphasised that this was just
the beginning of creative renewal for the on-demand age.
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The Workstreams: findings and recommendations
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The work from the Audiences and Beyond Broadcast teams (see below) influenced
all the other genre areas.
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Audiences - led by Tim Davie, Director of Marketing,
Communications and Audiences
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- Changing
demographics - more elderly population, single person households,
growth in non-traditional families etc - are changing consumption
- People experience electronic media at 1ft, 3ft and
10 ft - the palm screen,
the PC screen and the sofa screen - all bringing different expectations and
experiences, from the very personal to shared moments
- Ambient media, audio and gaming are all having an impact
- Some
audiences - and they don't fit any stereotypes - feel increasingly
disconnected with the 91Èȱ¬ and want content more relevant to their
lives
- A deeper understanding of what 'value' means to audiences
is underway
- The team recommended: better understanding of audience
diversity and needs; develop new kinds or relationships and insights
using Customer Relationship Management principles; establish new
audience measures and systems that look at reach across all platforms.
These recommendations are now being implemented.
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Beyond Broadcast - led by Richard Deverell, Controller, 91Èȱ¬ Children's
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- On-demand will be the third age of broadcasting and
the second phase of digital. The first age was linear channels and
limited choice. The second was linear channels but far greater choice - more
of the same. The third gives the audience far greater control, personalisation
and interaction. It will require fundamental change in what the 91Èȱ¬
commissions and provides in content and services and how it distributes
them.
- We'll be in a hybrid world until at least 2012 but
it's changing fast, as is the face of the competition - gaming and other providers of rich content.
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Recommendations include:
- Maximise public value in some genres by producing fewer,
more highly valued programmes with high production values, investment and a
longer shelf life
- Start to build the on-demand portfolio through pilots,
digitising content and making relevant parts of the archive available,
and developing 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer (My91Èȱ¬Player)
- Develop new navigation tools and ways to help people
find content
- Initiate a single pan-91Èȱ¬ rights strategy and digital
rights management system
- Ensure greater understanding of the importance of technology
to future success and integrate technologists into the creative process
- Improve innovation and product development through
audience insight and cross-disciplinary working - test, learn, move on
- Pilot 360 degree commissioning which would give one
team responsibility for all aspects of an idea on all platforms - linear broadcast, interactive,
on demand, mobile applications
- Build talent and improve relations with suppliers and
potential partners
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Journalism - led by Mark Byford, Deputy Director-General
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- In a growing world of opinionated news, partiality,
blogging and citizen journalism, the 91Èȱ¬ must provide the best
journalism in the world, rooted in its enduring values of accuracy,
impartiality and independence
- Audiences want change. They say trust
is as much about responsiveness as it is about reliability. They
recognise the difference between an unfolding story and a programme
of record like the 10 o'clock news
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Recommendations include:
- Shift energy and resource to continuous news
- 91Èȱ¬ News 24 becomes the centre of the TV operation
with key talent moving to the channel
- 91Èȱ¬ News 24 becomes the place
to break stories and follow unfolding stories
- Develop the on-demand offer in News with more convenience
and better search and video/audio offerings
- Using existing content,
develop outstanding services for mobiles and portable devices
- Improve the quality and depth of Sport and Entertainment
journalism
- Find new ways of shaping the 91Èȱ¬'s current affairs
output
- Bringing Journalism in to every secondary school in
the UK through initiatives like Schools Question Time
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Music - led by Jenny Abramsky, Director of Radio & Music
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New technologies have transformed the music industry
and music consumption. Personalisation and immediacy are going
to be critical - on broadband, mobile and podcasting.
The 91Èȱ¬ has, through its services and its independence, underpinned the
UK's music scene for decades, commissioning and promoting new music.
The challenge now is to ensure all activity across the organisation
is joined up as a major force for discovering, promoting, communicating
and supporting music in all its forms.
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Recommendations include:
- Have one 91Èȱ¬ music strategy under the Director of Radio & Music
- Moving TV Music Entertainment and commissioning into
Radio & Music alongside TV classical music
- Establish the place of music on 91Èȱ¬ TV from a portfolio
perspective and revitalise coverage of contemporary music for a mainstream
audience on 91Èȱ¬ ONE
- Develop pan-91Èȱ¬ music-based events with real
impact with existing and new audiences (such as the 91Èȱ¬ Electric
Proms or Flashmob: The Opera)
- Nurture new mainstream music presenters
- Develop a 91Èȱ¬ music broadband proposition and portal
- Make music learning central to the strategy with more
ambitious projects
- Develop 91Èȱ¬ THREE, Radio 1 and 1Xtra as major multi-platform music brands
- Enable people to create their own virtual
radio channels out of the wealth of our existing output, channels
reflecting their own personal tastes
- Across the 91Èȱ¬, support new artists, new music and
UK music so that the 91Èȱ¬ becomes the destination for unsigned bands
and young musicians to turn to for support
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Sport - led by Roger Mosey, Director of Sport
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Sport touches many people. It drives interactivity,
broadband and online activity. The 91Èȱ¬ needs to make Sport accessible
across all platforms, and through flexible scheduling and tone of
presentation.
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Recommendations include:
- Harness the whole 91Èȱ¬ - local and national - to make the most of big events
like the World Cup and the Olympics
- Offer audiences clarity and consistency via a 91Èȱ¬ Sport
broadband portal - a
24/7 service which would bring together live video and audio, along with sports
journalism and text services, allowing people to tap in to their own favourite
sports and teams
- Take a multi-layered approach to the range of sport
on offer, major events remaining on the conventional TV and radio
channels, but supplemented by some sport delivered only for interactive
TV and broadband - and underpinned by user-generated
content reflecting people's passions
- Appoint a specialist Sport Editor as the first step
to raising the profile of the genre and create a flagship Sports
News programme on 91Èȱ¬ Television
- Highlights should always be available on-demand and
tailored to audience needs
- We will schedule more flexibly so sports events reach
the largest possible audiences at times that suit them
- And we will, over time, phase out the Grandstand brand
because it no longer punches through in this multi-channel multimedia
world and we believe we can achieve greater impact for 91Èȱ¬ Sport
without it
- Sport should build partnerships with other creative
areas of the 91Èȱ¬ - including links with Entertainment and Comedy,
and tie-ins with learning projects and social action
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Children's and Teens - led by Andy Parfitt,
Controller Radio 1/1Xtra
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This group represents the audiences of tomorrow and
has special requirements. But development patterns for 0-16s have
not changed that much and they still like to balance the new with
the familiar. What has changed is the reality of technology in their
lives. They are driven by active media, participating, creating,
connecting. The 91Èȱ¬ is not that relevant to teenagers and needs to
really re-think how it reconnects.
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Recommendations include:
- Strengthen the Brand Portfolio by tight focus on age
groups. For 0-16s, a 91Èȱ¬ portfolio of four brands: CBeebies, C91Èȱ¬, a new Teen
Offer and 91Èȱ¬ Jam for all learning content
- Stretch CBeebies up to age six and provide content for
parents
- Focus C91Èȱ¬ as a childhood brand for 7-11s
- Create a lead 91Èȱ¬ teen offer for 12-16s including a
portal, high quality, long-running drama, comedy and music, drawing
on the strengths of Radio 1, 1Xtra, and 91Èȱ¬ THREE
- Align children's
radio under the CBeebies and C91Èȱ¬ brands and, in time, move the
production teams in Children's too
- Move all learning content under
one brand, 91Èȱ¬ Jam
- Move quickly to multi-platform, digital brands
- Improve
the 91Èȱ¬'s user-generated content provision for these age groups
- Deliver a 91Èȱ¬ gaming position for under-16s
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Drama - led by Emma Swain, Commissioning Editor, Specialist Factual
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Stories are central to human culture and audiences
want more than facts. They want more engagement through intense
emotions and experiences. Drama is pivotal in the 91Èȱ¬'s relationship
with its audiences. Computer games, live sport, music and reality
TV all now offer competing dramas. Economic, social and cultural
trends will also change the nature of the 91Èȱ¬'s drama offering.
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Recommendations include:
- Pilot and develop dramas across platforms that generate
intense experiences for different audiences
- Commission at least
four major radio landmark dramas for Radio 4 a year
- Reduce the number of individual titles broadcast and consolidate the offer,
investing in longer runs of series, growing value through on-demand and multiple
transmission whilst retaining range and breadth
- Maintain the 91Èȱ¬'s cultural legacy by nurturing and empowering writers. This
will require more investment in training and new production models such as writer-producer
or team-writing
- Cherish and invest in titles like EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City that speak
to the broadest audiences
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Entertainment and Factual Formats - led by John Willis, Director, Factual and
Learning
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Entertainment is a founding pillar of the 91Èȱ¬ and is
at the heart of the White Paper on the new 91Èȱ¬ Charter. But new
technologies are bringing new forms of entertainment - gaming and
social networking. The 91Èȱ¬ needs to modernise and find the hits of
the future.
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Recommendations include:
- Increase the on-air presence/impact of entertainment through consistent time
slots, dates and stripping of shows
- Modernise our tone and broaden the marketing mix to reach those audiences not
currently engaging with or finding our content
- Experiment with new content and formats for new platforms
- Ensure entertainment is seen as core public service
- Seed future success by investing in off-air pilots, using our platforms to
test and launch new ideas and nurturing the talent of the future
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Comedy - led by Jana Bennett, Director of Television
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Comedy is at the heart of national identity. It is
high risk, high cost and is emerging in new places like Ricky Gervais'
podcasts.
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Recommendations include:
- Focus on developing popular hits for 91Èȱ¬ ONE, with more mainstream comedy on
91Èȱ¬ TWO and increased piloting - from four to 12 a year for 91Èȱ¬ ONE
- Develop Comedy Drama on 91Èȱ¬ ONE and more ambitious mainstream comedy on radio
- Kick-start the sitcom engine by transforming the look and tone of popular sitcom,
by increasing production values and investing in development
- Make the 91Èȱ¬ portfolio work better by improving the creative comedy pipeline
and supply of talent and programmes across the radio and TV portfolio, including
nations and regions
- Develop opportunities for new talent to reach audiences on all platforms, and
improve training and support for comedy writers and directors
- Ensure the continuing strength of in-house production and hold an annual 91Èȱ¬
Comedy Day with all partners
- Develop a rights strategy to maximise chances for audiences to enjoy 91Èȱ¬ comedy,
public service and commercial
- Pioneer user-generated comedy and material for new platforms, particularly
mobile
- Re-launch bbc.co.uk/comedy to reflect all 91Èȱ¬ comedy and include more external
linking
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Knowledge Building - led by Pat Loughrey, Director, Nations and Regions
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Knowledge Building is one of the 91Èȱ¬'s core purposes.
It's the content that comes in many guises - factual, specialist factual,
learning, documentaries. It helps
people explore their world and their interests, to learn more about
it, interrogate and celebrate it.
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Using the archive, appropriate
partners and compelling new navigation ideas, the 91Èȱ¬ could
create a living bank of knowledge to be linked, clipped, rediscovered
and built in to bigger ideas.
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The 91Èȱ¬ should become a generator - as
well as a communicator - of knowledge as people make their
own observations and contributions and share them with others.
The term 'archive' could forever become obsolete.
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Recommendations include:
- Knowledge and exploration could become as big an offer from the 91Èȱ¬ as its
News and Journalism
- Rebalance the Knowledge Building portfolio to increase its relevance, responsiveness
and modernity, increasing development towards under-served audiences and maximising
ideas which have real scale and impact like Planet Earth and Super Volcano
- Develop cross-platform strategies and commissioning in key areas, eg science,
history, arts, religion, leisure, health and technology
- Make all the 91Èȱ¬'s Knowledge Building content findable and link it to all other
relevant 91Èȱ¬ content
- Strengthen and enrich 91Èȱ¬ Knowledge Building with user generated content adding
real depth to existing material
- Pilot Eyewitness - History, enabling people to click on a grid covering the
last 100 years and contribute their own thoughts, observations and stories from
any given day in the last century.
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Consistent themes across all Workstreams
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Five main themes emerged from the Creative Future work,
alongside specific recommendations as well as initiatives that will
enable ideas to come alive faster and better:
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The second wave of digital
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Wave One was about more of the same linear broadcasting
and channels. Wave Two means fundamentally re-thinking how the 91Èȱ¬
conceives, commissions, produces packages and distributes content
to audiences.
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This includes cross-platform content commissioning,
ie for one project like Doctor Who on 91Èȱ¬ ONE, online, broadband
or mobile as well as building on really big ideas and events while
meeting specialist audience interests via online and broadband.
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By commissioning projects in the round and integrating
key output areas into more coherent propositions the aim is to achieve
more impact with audiences. This will mean following 91Èȱ¬ News' multi-platform example in Sport, Music, Children's and Knowledge Building
content.
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Stronger emotional connections
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Audiences want more than facts. They want serious
entertainment, to feel emotionally connected and to be moved, particularly
through drama, entertainment and comedy, but also through factual
programmes like Planet Earth or The
Apprentice.
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Search and find
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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.
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Better search tools, branding and navigation are essential,
as are clear portals for big content areas like News, Sport,
Music, Natural History, Leisure and Health.
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The young
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The audiences of tomorrow need to receive more value
from the 91Èȱ¬. The 91Èȱ¬ needs to think how it engages them and reflects
their lives better through content that more focused and relevant.
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Active audiences
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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 - as partners with the 91Èȱ¬ and in their own communities - real
or virtual.
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Interactivity and user-generated content are increasingly
important stimuli for the creative process.
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What will enable us to deliver this?
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- Feeding more audience insights and research into the creative process and developing
new cross-platform audiences measurements
- Putting technology and its potential at the heart of creative thinking
- Developing a pan-91Èȱ¬ rights strategy
- Launching a more powerful search tool as bbc.co.uk is upgraded
- Cracking metadata/labelling as a priority
- Ensuring that the 91Èȱ¬ is building on changes already
underway and is ready to make the Creative Future recommendations
real through more collaboration and lateral ways of working
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91Èȱ¬ Press Office
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