BBC and New York Times are tackling same problem in different but creative ways

Media Leaders

The New York Times has bought popular word game Wordle and the BBC has brought back BBC3 to linear. But there is one more creative move the two media stalwarts should explore. 

It may be a truism and one that has been true for a very long time. For any media, whether old or new, you simply have to get yourself noticed to win an audience followed by the really hard bit – getting yourself noticed not just to survive but to grow.

Two very well-established organisations from different parts of the media universe addressed such a central problem in a very creative way this week.

One strapping media outlet is 170 years old, the other a mere stripling of 100 years.

The elder of the two pounced on the latest phenomenon de jour before anyone else had time to notice, while the other demonstrated creativity by carrying out an expert reverse ferret manoeuvre all the way back to the past.

Welcome to the New York Times’ ownership of Wordle, the online word game that has spread like wildfire through the internet, and to the BBC’s decision to finally admit that taking BBC Three online only, was and always has been, a misjudgement. In the world of the media, and television in particular, it is usually a mistake to make yourself less visible not more.

Safe bet you will have to pay for Wordle next year

For those who spent January recovering from Christmas, the gentle word game invented by the Welsh-born software engineer Josh Wardle sets the challenge of identifying a five-letter word by inserting letters into a grid. A box turns green if the letter is correct but grey if it is incorrect and yellow if it is correct but in the wrong place. Results can be shared on Twitter without giving the word away.

There is a new letter every day and millions are on the way to a mild addiction.

The New York Times, it is believed, has paid several million dollars to buy the rights to Wordle and from now on players will have to go to the NYT website to play.

At least for the present, Wordle players will be welcome for free and the New York Times will get splendid publicity – and presumably increased traffic – as a result.

The political weasel words have however already been spoken by the top brass of the New York Times.  The game will “initially remain free.” Note the giveaway word “initially” and obviously there are absolutely no plans whatever to charge at this particular moment.

This sounds very similar to the British Government promising faithfully that neither taxes nor national insurance charges will rise.

The reason for the innovative purchase is of course that the New York Times has an aggressive plan to reach 10 million subscribers by 2025 – a target set initially by former chief executive Mark Thompson.

The company has already attracted 8 million subscribers to its print and digital platforms, a great achievement by any standards, but 2 million is still a sizeable gap to bridge.

For a company worth around $7bn, buying Wordle is both cost-effective and an appropriate marketing démarche. It might just help to do the trick.

After all the company’s main business is words, although it’s a safe bet that Wordle will cost you a subscription by 2023 at the latest.

For now the small change Wordle purchase is definitely worth a lateral thinking award although it follows the company’s more heavyweight $550m purchase last month of The Athletic, the subscription-funded sports website.

‘Intuition’ proved to be wrong over BBC3

As for the BBC, which became probably the first public-service broadcaster in the world to voluntarily take an established linear channel online-only, they were warned at the time.

This, the BBC thought, was the way to reach the all-important 16- to 34-year-old audience that was even then six years ago moving rapidly online, although everyone was shifty at the time about the decision. The supposedly forward-looking move was mainly designed to disguise deep budget cuts.

The then chairman of the BBC Trust Rona Fairhead, admitted that the decision to close BBC Three as a broadcast channel had been finely balanced, and was taken in the face of a petition signed by more than 300,000 opponents.

As I noted at the time, the Trust said something strange and interesting, that “intuitive force” had powered the decision.

“Not logic, not sense, not facts: but intuitive force. It’s a dangerous thing taking irreversible decisions through the power of intuitive force,” I argued.

It is a good thing that the BBC is now deploying a burst of counter-intuitive thinking to bring back BBC Three as a linear channel. The online-only strategy did not work and cut its reach among its target audience from around 20% to closer to 6%.

It seems, according to the BBC Three channel controller Fiona Campbell, that not everyone has access to the internet or are regular users of the BBC iPlayer.

Raymond Snoddy

There may come a time when the entire broadcast industry goes wholly online, and wholly on-demand – but that time is not now, or anytime soon.

A large number of people still enjoy watching linear channels, often with a bit of time-shifting on the side, and it is crazy to deliberately remove yourself from that audience.

In its six years in the online only wilderness BBC Three produced remarkable hits such as Fleabag and Killing Eve but it was despite, not because of the BBC’s muddled thinking on its platform strategy.

Broadcast will give BBC Three a stronger voice and in an ever more crowded media market attention is all and the reborn BBC Three as a public service broadcasting channel will regain a prominent spot on the electronic programme guide.

Lets see what they can come up with and whether linear broadcast helps programmes like RuPaul’s Drag Race UK v The World to make a bigger splash.

The BBC has been creative in walking BBC Three all the way back to linear TV. Any award will however have to be removed if the BBC demonstrates it has really learned nothing at all if it axes BBC Four – but that’s another story.

Meanwhile the channel should perhaps have a chat with the New York Times about licencing Wordle. An early evening slot planned for teenagers would benefit from a counter-intuitive Wordle TV programme and at the same time boost the nation’s spelling ability.

Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for Mediatel News on Wednesdays.

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