[itvt] recently caught up with Ashley Highfield, director of new media at BBCi, to get some more insight into the BBC's announcement last month (see [itvt] Issue 4.99 Part 1 3/19/03) that it would restructure BBCi to focus the division's resources on developing new ITV services and on ensuring that it has a robust infrastructure in place to support those new services. (Note: the restructuring will come at the expense of the BBC's Web content development team, which will lose around 100 employees over the next 6-12 months. As a result of the restructuring, BBCi's £112 million annual budget will be reduced by £6 million; however, funding for the development of ITV services will not be affected.)

Highfield told us that the positive audience response to a number of ITV applications BBCi rolled out over the past 2 years had convinced BBC higher-ups of the medium's potential. The success of the Wimbledon app, which debuted in May 2001 "was an initial indicator that this was more than just Teletext on steroids," he said. "It became clear that this was going to be something that we should watch closely." During the rest of 2001, the BBC offered a variety of apps to accompany its sports coverage, but the successful introduction the next year of ITV applications associated with other kinds of programming, such as "Walking with Beasts" and "Test the Nation," demonstrated that "ITV was something that worked potentially everywhere." More recent applications, such as those associated with the shows "Fame Academy," "Great Britons," and "You the Judge," have consistently resulted in high participation rates: "We're not talking 1 or 2 percent," Highfield said. "This is 20, 30, 40 percent of the audience that wants to participate, from simply voting to interacting for the whole evening."

However, perhaps the most important factor in the BBC's decision to focus BBCi's resources on ITV at the expense of the Web was the knowledge that the Internet's penetration-rate is still quite low in the UK--around 50%. Interactive TV provides the BBC with a way to reach "underserved" audiences such as senior citizens, who might not have access to a computer: "It was becoming very clear by the middle of last year, that we ought to be investing more in this, not least because it is a very effective, comparatively inexpensive way of reaching our audience," Highfield recalled.

As it increases the amount of ITV-enabled programming it offers, Highfield said, the BBC will be guided by a number of objectives: 1) to provide viewers with access to information whenever they want it; 2) to provide them with more mechanisms to communicate back to a show's producers; and 3) to provide them with opportunities to share their opinions with other viewers. "Our vision is to reach all of Britain, to get all of Britain connected digitally," Highfield explained. "We want to create a Britain where everyone can consume their information, entertainment and education, wherever, however, whenever. Not just receive from us, but share their views back with us, and then be able to share them with each other, through communities of interest."

Although it will be devoting more of its resources to ITV, BBCi will continue to develop content for multiple platforms: "We are not going to achieve our goals through one medium, but rather through a mix of narrowband, broadband, mobile and ITV," Highfield said. This will require BBCi producers to become "multi-skilled," as "it is not actually meaningful anymore to separate our stuff by platform," he added.

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