The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Chris Smith,has announced that he has given the BBC permission to put its internet services on a permanent footing as a core publicly funded service alongside television and radio. According to reports, this is a result of overwhelming public support for the BBC gauged by the widest public consultation exercise of its kind.
Of the 1,592 respondents (organisations and individuals) to the survey, 93% were existing users of BBC ONLINE and only 4% had never used the internet. 95% of respondents endorsed BBC ONLINE.
“The response is a welcome mandate for continuing our Online activities,” says BBC director of corporate affairs, Colin Browne. “It demonstrates a strong level of support for the BBC applying public service principles to develop a significant role in this new medium. We will be drawing on what licence fee payers have told us as we develop this service for the future.”
However, not everyone is as happy as this about the BBC going public. Reports from some online firms suggest that the volume of the contract and scale of the promotion it will be able to generate, especially on platforms which are unaccessible to commercial groups, will have a huge impact on competitors.
The public funding of the group will have far reaching implications to other players in the field, according to insiders of the internet industry, and there is the worry that its vast subject matter will jeopardies other subscribers services.
Additional to this, by using the public licence fee to fund BBC ONLINE, the Government will in affect be using the collective funds to provide a service to a selective audience, as the majority of the UK population does not have access to the internet at home.
It is understood that as yet there has been no consultation as to the decision, which is something that industry spokespeople are hoping for.
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