Newspaper Society: BBC video network endangers local press
By Leah McBride Mensching, Tuesday 24 June 2008 at 22:43 :: Competition :: #1835 :: rss
The BBC's plan that would have 65 Web sites across the United Kingdom provide on-demand news and sports video puts local press in danger, and will have a negative effect on commercial competition, announced The Newspaper Society, which represents local UK media companies, Media Guardian reported Tuesday.
The BBC plans to spend £68 million on the sites, which will give the corporation “free rein to trample over commercial rivals,” who are already providing local online content, the Newspaper Society stated.
Regulator Ofcom will investigate how the new video services would impact local newspapers, radio stations, and affiliated online and TV services, BBC News reported Tuesday. A BBC review stated that the corporation is “falling short of its own high standards,” as research has found 37 percent of people in the United Kingdom believe BBC news reports are not relevant to where they live.
The BBC on Tuesday began consulting on the proposals for the new local Web sites. Diane Coyle, BBC trustee and chairwoman of the Trust's public value and fair trading committee said the Trust “wanted a proposal that would deliver public value with minimum adverse impact on local newspapers and other commercial media services,” the BBC reported.
The Newspaper Society has been the first to step forward with fierce criticism, but it is believed others across the industry are also angry about the proposed plans.
“The BBC should not spend public money duplicating local news services already provided by existing local media companies,” said David Newell, director of the Newspaper Society, Media Guardian reported. “This was acknowledged by the BBC when it withdrew its plans for ultra-local television last year. Yet today's proposals to strengthen the BBC's local online news services are simply ultra local TV in a different guise.”
Currently, the BBC has 60 local Web sites that already compete with regional newspaper Web sites, and the new “expansion plans, combined with its cross-promotional power, threaten to steal away audiences and undermine the ability of publishers to pursue their own digital development strategies, which are so important to the future of local media in the UK,” Newell said, according to Media Guardian. “The BBC is a highly-valued institution but it should not be given free rein to trample over commercial rivals and become the sole provider of local news in the UK.”
The BBC News report stated that the corporation views the proposed launch of 65 local video Web sites as “a natural expansion of its local UK Web sites, which operate in 65 regions.”
Trinity Mirror Chief Executive Sly Bailey last month told the country's House of Lords communications committee that the BBC should not be allowed to expand its local online content offerings.
“Our concern is that if the BBC moves online evermore locally, without the same commercial constraints as us, it will disrupt these markets making it much more difficult to enter into them,” she said, according to Media Guardian.
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