BBC International Website Could Get Ads

BBC News and BBC Worldwide are understood to have agreed a deal which will see advertising on the corporation’s international website, bbc.com.

BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial arm that oversees BBC.com, apparently came to an arrangement with BBC News last week, according to a report on MediaGuardian.co.uk.

The report quotes unnamed sources as saying that BBC Worldwide has agreed to pay a minimum guaranteed income to the public service broadcasting part of the BBC.

In return BBC Worldwide will get the rights to use BBC news content for commercial gain and a licence to exploit the BBC brand commercially.

MediaGuardian adds that “Worldwide will also cover the loss of around £4m a year the BBC’s international news website gets from the Foreign Office in grant-in-aid.

“On top of that, Worldwide has guaranteed a percentage of revenue raised from BBC.com advertising will go back to BBC news. It is not known what the percentage is.”

The prospect of the BBC putting ads on its international site first emerged at the start of the year, when an alliance of online publishers called on the BBC Trust to reject the proposals (see Publishers Call On BBC Trust To Reject Online Ads).

In a statement released at the time, the British Internet Publishers’ Alliance (BIPA) said that whilst such revenues might seem superficially attractive as a means of “augmenting” the licence fee, the collateral damage to the private sector would far outweigh any benefits.

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