Bbc.co.uk
Encyclopedia
BBC Online is the brand name and home for the BBC
's UK
online service. It is a large network of website
s including such high profile sites as BBC News
and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer
, the pre-school site Cbeebies
, and learning services such as Bitesize. The BBC has had an online presence supporting its TV and radio programmes and web-only initiatives since 1994 but did not launch officially until December 1997, following government approval to fund it by TV licence fee revenue as a service in its own right. Throughout its short history, the online plans of the BBC have been subject to various public consultations and government reviews illustrating concerns from commercial rivals that its large presence and public funding distorts the UK market.
The website has gone through several branding changes since it was launched. Originally named BBC Online, it was then rebranded as BBCi (which itself was the brand name for interactive TV services) before being named bbc.co.uk. It was then branded BBC Online again in 2008. The Web
-based service of the BBC is one of the world's largest and most visited websites (thirty-ninth most visited according to Alexa
in April 2011). As of 2007, it contained over two million pages.
On 26 February 2010 The Times
claimed that Mark Thompson
, Director General of the BBC, proposed that the BBC's web output should be cut by 50%, with online staff numbers and budgets reduced by 25% in a bid to scale back BBC operations and allow commercial rivals more room. On 2 March 2010, the BBC reported that it will cut its website spending by 25% and close BBC 6 Music and Asian Network. On 24 January 2011, the confirmed cuts of 25% were announced leaving a £34 million shortfall. This resulted in the closure of several sites such as BBC Switch
, BBC Blast, 6-0-6
and the announcement of plans to sell on the Douglas Adams created site h2g2
.
The service's original home was www.bbcnc.org.uk (the "nc" standing for "networking club") launched on 11 May 1994 as a paid subscription service. For a joining fee of £25 and a monthly subscription of £12, members of the club were given access to an early type of social networking site featuring a bulletin board
for sharing information and real-time conversation, along with a dialup internet connection service.
Within 12 months, the BBC offered "auntie" on-line discussion groups; web pages for select web-related programs and BBC departments; free web pages for associate members; and an internet connection service www.bbc.co.uk was introduced in 1996 though the old address also remained active for some time afterwards.
The BBC Director General John Birt sought government approval to direct licence fee revenue into the service, describing planned BBC internet services as the “third medium” joining the BBC's existing TV and Radio networks, achieving a change in the BBC Charter
. This led to the official launch of BBC Online at the www.bbc.co.uk address in December 1997.
For a time, www.bbc.co.uk was used for the organisation's corporate and educational site, while entertainment-based content appeared on www.beeb.com. The two sites were merged in 1998 to become BBC Online, at www.bbc.co.uk. By December 1998, the BBC Homepage was being described as "your gateway to 200 sites and 25,000 pages"
In 1999, the BBC bought the www.bbc.com domain name for $375,000, previously owned by Boston Business Computing, but the price of this purchase was not revealed until 6 years later. As of 2005, www.bbcnc.org.uk no longer exists. The beeb.com address now redirects to the BBC Shop website run by BBC Worldwide
, at www.bbcshop.com.
In 2001 BBC Online was rebranded as BBCi. The BBCi name was conceived as an umbrella brand for all the BBC's digital interactive services across web, digital teletext, interactive TV and on mobile platforms. The use of letter "i" prefix
es and suffix
es to denote information technology or interactivity was very much in vogue at this time, according to the BBC, the "i" in BBCi stood for "interactivity" as well as "innovation".
As part of the rebrand, BBC website pages all displayed a standard navigation bar across the top of the screen, offering a category-based navigation: Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, A-Z Index and a search. The navbar was designed to offer a similar navigation system to the i-bar on BBCi interactive television.
After three years of consistent use across different platforms, the BBC began to drop the BBCi brand gradually; on 6 May 2004, the BBC website was renamed bbc.co.uk, after the main URL used to access the site. Interactive TV services continued under the BBCi brand until it was dropped completely in 2008. The BBC's online video player, the iPlayer has, however, retained an i-prefix in its branding.
On 14 December 2007, a beta version of a new bbc.co.uk homepage was launched, with the ability to customise the page by adding, removing and rearranging different categories, such as 'News', 'Weather' and 'Entertainment'. The widget
-based design was inspired by sites such as Facebook
and iGoogle
, and allowed the BBC to add new content to the homepage without cluttering it and still retaining personal choice. The new homepage also had a simple searchbox taskbar with the clock design used in the 1970s on the BBC's television service. The homepage also featured a box containing featured content of the website, located on the right hand side of the main page. The new BBC homepage left beta stage on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 to serve as the new BBC Homepage under the same URL as the previous version did. This very different look was disorientating at first, but easier to understand later on.
On 30 January 2010, a new webpage design became available as a beta version, that by May 2010, replaced the old homepage. This homepage expanded on the modules idea and the customisation theme. The website allowed certain themes that interested the viewer to be tracked, via a new module. It also included a new 'Media Zone' where featured content could be displayed, with this new featured box being located across the entire top of the webpage, below the header. The Media Zone was also changed so that the content changed by running the mouse over the tabs. The header was again changed to include the headings of the major sections of the website, these being: Home, News
, Sport
, Weather
, iPlayer
, TV
, Radio
and more, spread out evenly across the header. This new header was included across the entire website. Despite the cosmetic appearance of the relaunch, the new website was actually relaunched using a completely different operating system, allowing the site's four differnt international versions to be changed and altered easier. It also brought their website layouts and operations closer to that of the main website.
Following the launch of the new BBC News Website, which altered the header bar on that site, in October 2010, the new style of header was launched across the whole website, starting off with some of the larger, yet not obvious, sites, such as Doctor Who
, first before relaunching all of the sites, including the homepage with the new look. This new style of header included the headings as before, but with the search box redesigned and aligned right, as with the links which are significantly smaller. Other links, such as BBC id login and mobile versions of the website also appear on the header, just to the right of the smaller BBC logo.
On 21 September 2011, a new BBC Homepage went into beta testing that was drastically different from those before it. The new homepgae was based on feedback that stated that the current page was too narrow in focus and not distinctive enough, with the homepage not displaying the full extend of the BBC Online site and that some didn't realise it was the homepage. As a result, they launched a new version that featured as a centrepeice a revolving carousel of content on the BBC Online website, with filters beneath to restrict it to, and to show more of entertainment, lifestyle, knowledge and news and sports topics. At the top of the page, a new header has been inserted giving the date, the time through the use of the vintage BBC clock, as well as weather prospects for the next three days through the use of the traditional weather symbols. Below the carousel, boxes contain links to the most popular video material, web articles and pages on the site, as well as TV and Radio listings alongside an A-Z list of the BBC's top level domains. This new site replaced the previous one on 30 November 2011.
, a sports section, music, science, technology and entertainment pages, amongst other things. As might be expected, the website has a British
orientation, although the home page, news section and sports section each provide different content between UK and "International" visitors. There are also separate pages for Wales
, Scotland
and Northern Ireland
written by the BBC Nations and individual county pages containing local news and programme schedules.
The website focuses around the primary top level domains of News
, Sport
, Weather
, iPlayer
, TV
and Radio
. These are easily accessible from the taskbar running across the top of all current BBC Online pages. However other top level domains are also in existence: some are available from a drop down list on the taskbar including CBBC
, CBeebies
, Comedy, Food, Health, History, Learning
, Music
, Science and Nature, while other top level domains are only available through the A-Z index on the BBC website. These include Archive, Arts & Culture, Ethics, Gardening, Parenting, Religion and Travel news. However there are many more top level domains - some 400 in March 2010 however this number has decreased as top level domains now frequently link to a lower domain name - that link to websites for individual services or programmes.
In February 2001, BBC Online incorporated Douglas Adams
' previously independent h2g2
project into its group of web sites, and eventually replaced all its existing message boards, which used an archaic system called Howerd, with the DNA software derived from that project. The site's now archived Collective
magazine also used the DNA software along with numerous other sites created after the BBC's acquisition of h2g2.
The website has extensive technical information available about its operation. The BBC also makes some of the content on bbc.co.uk and the BBC News Website available in XML format on its developer network backstage.bbc.co.uk
. Also, through participation in the Creative Archive Licence group, bbc.co.uk allows legal downloads of selected material via the Internet.
Further, you can also solve quizzes, especially designed to improve your comprehension and understanding of the English language.
The BBC also runs a message board for young people named onion street.
There is integration between television output and website content with aspects of children's programming have followup information on their websites.
http;//www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/childernsite
In the past the BBC Blast tour featured workshops and talks with stars from a variety of backgrounds, including rapper Akala
, director and actor Noel Clarke
, BBC Radio 1Xtra DJs Ace and Vis
, singer-songwriter Jay Sean, rapper Chipmunk
, Panjabi Hit Squad
and Yngve & The Innocent
.
Blast worked with a number of partners to put on events and give content a chance to be promoted at a higher level. These partners included the Victoria and Albert Museum
, RSC
, National Portrait Gallery, National Theatre
, Zoo Nation, and the British Film Institute
.
On 24 January 2011, the BBC announced the closure of BBC Blast as part of a 25% cut to the BBC Online budget, resulting in a £34 million shortfall.
identifier which is used to provide a permanent URL. It currently only holds data from the launch date plus a selection of high profile programmes (notably Natural History programmes and Radio 4 programmes), but Jana Bennett
, Director of BBC Vision
, said in June 2008 that the BBC will eventually add a page for each programme it has broadcast over its history to the service.
BBC Programmes is available as HTML and RDF/XML and JSON.
The BBC Programme Catalogue
is an internal archive of the BBC back catalogue which was briefly available online to the public in beta.
, was launched in December 2007, which allows users to download both radio and TV content for up to seven days after broadcast. The television version allows users to either stream programmes or to download them using peer-to-peer
and DRM
technology.
Initially streams were generally broadcast in the RealAudio
and RealVideo
formats controlled by RealNetworks
and the BBC drew criticism with some for using those closed formats which, at the time, could only be played using RealPlayer
. In response to such criticisms, the BBC negotiated a deal with RealNetworks a 'cut-down' version of RealPlayer which did not contain as much advertising and marketing.
Windows Media
has also been adopted and since Autumn 2006, a Windows Media stream of all national BBC radio stations has been available.
More recently, the BBC has been experimenting with MP3
downloads and podcast
ing facilities for an increasing number of radio shows, with a high level of success; a less publicised trial of Ogg Vorbis streams for certain programmes was less successful, and has now been discontinued.
During major events, the BBC often features liveblogs
which publish the most recent text and image posts from BBC corespondents; particularly-significant political events may pair live blogs with live video streams or recorded video loops relevant to the event.
:
Users that block certain of these tracking domains will find certain parts of the BBC's websites inaccessible.
, this was due to the BBC's funding, derived primarily from compulsory television licence
fees from UK viewers. BBC Worldwide
who exploit BBC brands commercially have had several attempts at launching services online including Beeb.com in the late 1990s.
In 2006, the BBC began making controversial plans to raise revenue by including advertising on the international version of BBC News Online
accessed from outside the United Kingdom
. BBC Online is currently freely available worldwide (via various URLs including bbc.com/news) but planned video services and a lower than expected licence fee settlement paid for by UK residents only led to the BBC introducing banner advertisements to the site from November 2007. The BBC Trust
approved the plans for introducing advertisements which also involved creating bbc.com as a part of BBC Worldwide. Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the Trust, confirmed the BBC would not charge for online news following News International
's planned introduction of charges for online content.
Prior to this there had been criticism from some, as web users outside the UK could use the services (including the entire BBC radio services) without having to pay for them. In addition, where rights to sporting events (such as certain football
or cricket
matches) do not include international online coverage, users from outside the UK are blocked from listening to commentaries.
On 24 January 2011, it was announced that the BBC was to cut its online budget by 25% or £34 million. To cope with this, many BBC websites would be closed including BBC Switch
, BBC Blast, 6-0-6
, BBC raw, Video Nation
, and planned to sell the Douglas Adams created website h2g2
, as well as the automation of many programme websites and radio websites.
The review was published in July 2004 and it was recommended that the BBC "prioritise news, current affairs, education and information which is of value to the citizen." In response the BBC also shut down a small number of sections of the site, including the Soaps section.
In November 2004, the Governors of the BBC announced a newer, much more tightly drawn remit for bbc.co.uk as part of their response to the review. They also announced, as Graf had recommended, a new approach towards external providers which will see bbc.co.uk aiming to spend at least 25% of its eligible budget on content and services through independent commissions by the end of 2006/07.
The implementation of the Graf report has seen the popular message boards in the BBC Sport section shut down, as the BBC tries to promote its 606 brand, but these changes have proved unpopular as the interface has proven unusable and large numbers of content providers have abandoned the BBC site.
ran a popular sub-site called Cult TV. This sub-site had news, star interviews, trivia, and other content popular with fans of the cult TV shows they covered. Examples of covered TV shows include The X-Files
, Doctor Who
, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Farscape
and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
.
On 15 July 2005, the BBC
announced that the site was closing as of the end of the month, although the Doctor Who section would be unaffected as the series was an ongoing BBC concern. The announcement explained that this was "part of the restructuring of the BBC's online activities". It was promised that some of the content would be moved to new places on bbc.co.uk, although as of March 2008 it is currently still all online at the no-longer-updated Cult site. In recent years, some of the content covered in the Cult section was included in the BBC's Archive section, such as content and information on the 25th Anniversary of Children's BBC
.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
online service. It is a large network of website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
s including such high profile sites as BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services co-branded BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer, commonly shortened to iPlayer, is an internet television and radio service, developed by the BBC to extend its former RealPlayer-based and other streamed video clip content to include whole TV shows....
, the pre-school site Cbeebies
CBeebies
CBeebies is the brand used by the BBC for programming aimed at children 6 years and under. It is used as a themed strand in the UK on terrestrial television, as a separate free-to-air domestic British channel and used for international varients supported by advertising, subscription or both...
, and learning services such as Bitesize. The BBC has had an online presence supporting its TV and radio programmes and web-only initiatives since 1994 but did not launch officially until December 1997, following government approval to fund it by TV licence fee revenue as a service in its own right. Throughout its short history, the online plans of the BBC have been subject to various public consultations and government reviews illustrating concerns from commercial rivals that its large presence and public funding distorts the UK market.
The website has gone through several branding changes since it was launched. Originally named BBC Online, it was then rebranded as BBCi (which itself was the brand name for interactive TV services) before being named bbc.co.uk. It was then branded BBC Online again in 2008. The Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
-based service of the BBC is one of the world's largest and most visited websites (thirty-ninth most visited according to Alexa
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
in April 2011). As of 2007, it contained over two million pages.
On 26 February 2010 The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
claimed that Mark Thompson
Mark Thompson
Mark John Thompson is Director-General of the BBC, a post he has held since 2004, and a former chief executive of Channel 4...
, Director General of the BBC, proposed that the BBC's web output should be cut by 50%, with online staff numbers and budgets reduced by 25% in a bid to scale back BBC operations and allow commercial rivals more room. On 2 March 2010, the BBC reported that it will cut its website spending by 25% and close BBC 6 Music and Asian Network. On 24 January 2011, the confirmed cuts of 25% were announced leaving a £34 million shortfall. This resulted in the closure of several sites such as BBC Switch
BBC Switch
BBC Switch was the brand for BBC content aimed at UK teenagers. The brand launched on Saturday 20 October 2007 on BBC Two And ceased broadcasting on Saturday 17 December 2010...
, BBC Blast, 6-0-6
6-0-6
6-0-6 is a football phone-in, broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live throughout the football season; when the programme started, it typically went on air at 6:06pm on a matchday . It covers topics relating to the current affairs of football in the United Kingdom. It currently airs on Saturdays and...
and the announcement of plans to sell on the Douglas Adams created site h2g2
H2g2
h2g2 is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project engaged in the construction of, in its own words, "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the science fiction comedy series...
.
BBC Networking Club
Bulletin board
A bulletin board is a surface intended for the posting of public messages, for example, to advertise things to buy or sell, announce events, or provide information...
for sharing information and real-time conversation, along with a dialup internet connection service.
Within 12 months, the BBC offered "auntie" on-line discussion groups; web pages for select web-related programs and BBC departments; free web pages for associate members; and an internet connection service www.bbc.co.uk was introduced in 1996 though the old address also remained active for some time afterwards.
BBC Online
BBC Charter
The BBC Charter established the BBC . An accompanying Agreement recognises its editorial independence and sets out its public obligations in detail....
. This led to the official launch of BBC Online at the www.bbc.co.uk address in December 1997.
For a time, www.bbc.co.uk was used for the organisation's corporate and educational site, while entertainment-based content appeared on www.beeb.com. The two sites were merged in 1998 to become BBC Online, at www.bbc.co.uk. By December 1998, the BBC Homepage was being described as "your gateway to 200 sites and 25,000 pages"
In 1999, the BBC bought the www.bbc.com domain name for $375,000, previously owned by Boston Business Computing, but the price of this purchase was not revealed until 6 years later. As of 2005, www.bbcnc.org.uk no longer exists. The beeb.com address now redirects to the BBC Shop website run by BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
, at www.bbcshop.com.
BBCi
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es and suffix
Suffix
In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es to denote information technology or interactivity was very much in vogue at this time, according to the BBC, the "i" in BBCi stood for "interactivity" as well as "innovation".
As part of the rebrand, BBC website pages all displayed a standard navigation bar across the top of the screen, offering a category-based navigation: Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, A-Z Index and a search. The navbar was designed to offer a similar navigation system to the i-bar on BBCi interactive television.
bbc.co.uk and the return of BBC Online
On 14 December 2007, a beta version of a new bbc.co.uk homepage was launched, with the ability to customise the page by adding, removing and rearranging different categories, such as 'News', 'Weather' and 'Entertainment'. The widget
Web widget
In computing a web widget is a software widget for the web. It's a small application that can be installed and executed within a web page by an end user. They are derived from the idea of code reuse. Other terms used to describe web widgets include: portlet, gadget, badge, module, webjit, capsule,...
-based design was inspired by sites such as Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and iGoogle
IGoogle
iGoogle , a service of Google, is a customizable Ajax-based startpage or personal web portal . Google originally launched the service in May 2005...
, and allowed the BBC to add new content to the homepage without cluttering it and still retaining personal choice. The new homepage also had a simple searchbox taskbar with the clock design used in the 1970s on the BBC's television service. The homepage also featured a box containing featured content of the website, located on the right hand side of the main page. The new BBC homepage left beta stage on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 to serve as the new BBC Homepage under the same URL as the previous version did. This very different look was disorientating at first, but easier to understand later on.
On 30 January 2010, a new webpage design became available as a beta version, that by May 2010, replaced the old homepage. This homepage expanded on the modules idea and the customisation theme. The website allowed certain themes that interested the viewer to be tracked, via a new module. It also included a new 'Media Zone' where featured content could be displayed, with this new featured box being located across the entire top of the webpage, below the header. The Media Zone was also changed so that the content changed by running the mouse over the tabs. The header was again changed to include the headings of the major sections of the website, these being: Home, News
BBC News Online
BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. The website is the most popular news website in the United Kingdom and forms a major part of BBC Online ....
, Sport
BBC Sport
BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC. It became a fully dedicated division of the BBC in 2000. It incorporates programmes such as Match of the Day, Grandstand , Test Match Special, Ski Sunday, Rugby Special and coverage of Formula One motor racing, MotoGP and the Wimbledon Tennis...
, Weather
BBC Weather
BBC Weather is the BBC's department in charge of preparing and broadcasting weather forecasts and is now part of BBC News. The broadcast meteorologists are employed by the Met Office...
, iPlayer
BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer, commonly shortened to iPlayer, is an internet television and radio service, developed by the BBC to extend its former RealPlayer-based and other streamed video clip content to include whole TV shows....
, TV
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
, Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
and more, spread out evenly across the header. This new header was included across the entire website. Despite the cosmetic appearance of the relaunch, the new website was actually relaunched using a completely different operating system, allowing the site's four differnt international versions to be changed and altered easier. It also brought their website layouts and operations closer to that of the main website.
Following the launch of the new BBC News Website, which altered the header bar on that site, in October 2010, the new style of header was launched across the whole website, starting off with some of the larger, yet not obvious, sites, such as Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
, first before relaunching all of the sites, including the homepage with the new look. This new style of header included the headings as before, but with the search box redesigned and aligned right, as with the links which are significantly smaller. Other links, such as BBC id login and mobile versions of the website also appear on the header, just to the right of the smaller BBC logo.
On 21 September 2011, a new BBC Homepage went into beta testing that was drastically different from those before it. The new homepgae was based on feedback that stated that the current page was too narrow in focus and not distinctive enough, with the homepage not displaying the full extend of the BBC Online site and that some didn't realise it was the homepage. As a result, they launched a new version that featured as a centrepeice a revolving carousel of content on the BBC Online website, with filters beneath to restrict it to, and to show more of entertainment, lifestyle, knowledge and news and sports topics. At the top of the page, a new header has been inserted giving the date, the time through the use of the vintage BBC clock, as well as weather prospects for the next three days through the use of the traditional weather symbols. Below the carousel, boxes contain links to the most popular video material, web articles and pages on the site, as well as TV and Radio listings alongside an A-Z list of the BBC's top level domains. This new site replaced the previous one on 30 November 2011.
Content
The websites include news from the BBC News OnlineBBC News Online
BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. The website is the most popular news website in the United Kingdom and forms a major part of BBC Online ....
, a sports section, music, science, technology and entertainment pages, amongst other things. As might be expected, the website has a British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
orientation, although the home page, news section and sports section each provide different content between UK and "International" visitors. There are also separate pages for Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
written by the BBC Nations and individual county pages containing local news and programme schedules.
The website focuses around the primary top level domains of News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
, Sport
BBC Sport
BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC. It became a fully dedicated division of the BBC in 2000. It incorporates programmes such as Match of the Day, Grandstand , Test Match Special, Ski Sunday, Rugby Special and coverage of Formula One motor racing, MotoGP and the Wimbledon Tennis...
, Weather
BBC Weather
BBC Weather is the BBC's department in charge of preparing and broadcasting weather forecasts and is now part of BBC News. The broadcast meteorologists are employed by the Met Office...
, iPlayer
BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer, commonly shortened to iPlayer, is an internet television and radio service, developed by the BBC to extend its former RealPlayer-based and other streamed video clip content to include whole TV shows....
, TV
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
and Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
. These are easily accessible from the taskbar running across the top of all current BBC Online pages. However other top level domains are also in existence: some are available from a drop down list on the taskbar including CBBC
CBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
, CBeebies
CBeebies
CBeebies is the brand used by the BBC for programming aimed at children 6 years and under. It is used as a themed strand in the UK on terrestrial television, as a separate free-to-air domestic British channel and used for international varients supported by advertising, subscription or both...
, Comedy, Food, Health, History, Learning
BBC Learning
BBC Learning can refer to the following:* A department within the BBC , part of BBC Vision* The portal website created by BBC Learning* A website created by BBC Worldwide-BBC Worldwide:...
, Music
BBC Music
BBC Music is a team working in the department of Audio and Music Interactive at the BBC. Responsible for the BBC Music website - the portal site to music content across the BBC website....
, Science and Nature, while other top level domains are only available through the A-Z index on the BBC website. These include Archive, Arts & Culture, Ethics, Gardening, Parenting, Religion and Travel news. However there are many more top level domains - some 400 in March 2010 however this number has decreased as top level domains now frequently link to a lower domain name - that link to websites for individual services or programmes.
In February 2001, BBC Online incorporated Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
' previously independent h2g2
H2g2
h2g2 is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project engaged in the construction of, in its own words, "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the science fiction comedy series...
project into its group of web sites, and eventually replaced all its existing message boards, which used an archaic system called Howerd, with the DNA software derived from that project. The site's now archived Collective
Collective (BBC)
Collective was an "interactive culture magazine" hosted by the BBC's website, bbc.co.uk. Collective was launched in May 2002, becoming interactive in September of the same year. Collective editors included Rowan Kerek, Jonathan Carter, Alastair Lee, James Cowdery and Matt Walton who had the...
magazine also used the DNA software along with numerous other sites created after the BBC's acquisition of h2g2.
The website has extensive technical information available about its operation. The BBC also makes some of the content on bbc.co.uk and the BBC News Website available in XML format on its developer network backstage.bbc.co.uk
Backstage.bbc.co.uk
backstage.bbc.co.uk is the brand name of the BBC's developer network which operated between May 2005 and December 2010.-Purpose:...
. Also, through participation in the Creative Archive Licence group, bbc.co.uk allows legal downloads of selected material via the Internet.
Further, you can also solve quizzes, especially designed to improve your comprehension and understanding of the English language.
Children's
The BBC runs a comprehensive children's website sub-site. It includes information on all of CBBC's shows along with several sub-sites covering art, sport, news, and other current events. Its message boards are especially popular with children who use them to communicate with each other about all of CBBC's output among other salient topics for kids like bullying, books, and personal problems. The "Your Life" page was especially geared to helping young people sort through their difficulties. "Your Life" featured agony uncle "Ask Aaron," a professional psychotherapist who provided regular answers to children's questions across the message boards. The "Your Life" page and its boards are now closed, and the agony uncle has moved on to Radio One's Sunday Surgery as their mental health expert.The BBC also runs a message board for young people named onion street.
There is integration between television output and website content with aspects of children's programming have followup information on their websites.
http;//www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/childernsite
BBC Blast
BBC Blast was the BBC's network for creative teenagers. It provided access to mentors both online and at free events and workshops across the UK. The website specifically catered for 13 to 19 year olds but the BBC Blast project also ran a variety of work experience schemes for young adults between the ages of 18 to 25. Blast was running from 2002 until 2011. It included a forum where participants could upload videos, audio tracks and images and comment on each others work.In the past the BBC Blast tour featured workshops and talks with stars from a variety of backgrounds, including rapper Akala
Akala
Akala may refer to:* [[ʻĀkala]] or Rubus hawaiensis, a species of flowering plant endemic to Hawaii* Akala , English rap and hip hop artist...
, director and actor Noel Clarke
Noel Clarke
Noel Anthony Clarke is an English actor, director and screenwriter from London. He is best known for playing Wyman Norris in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Mickey Smith in Doctor Who...
, BBC Radio 1Xtra DJs Ace and Vis
Ace and Vis
Ace and Vis, aka The Troublemakers of Radio, are BBC 1Xtra radio DJs and television presenters from south-east London. They met whilst studying at the BRIT School in London....
, singer-songwriter Jay Sean, rapper Chipmunk
Chipmunk (rapper)
Jahmaal Noel Fyffe known by his stage name Chipmunk, is a British hip hop rapper and songwriter from Tottenham, London....
, Panjabi Hit Squad
Panjabi Hit Squad
Panjabi Hit Squad are a group of Asian artists signed to the UK imprint of Hip-Hop giant, Def Jam. The members all grew up in Southall, UK. As well as working with various high-profile acts such as Mariah Carey, Ashanti, and Sway, they also work with community projects such as youth project BBC...
and Yngve & The Innocent
Yngve Wieland
Yngve Wieland is a musician, singer and songwriter, based in London, UK. Originally from Cliffony in County Sligo, although born in Kaiserslautern, Germany, Yngve began working as a solo artist in Ireland, releasing two EPs - and one album between 2006 and 2009...
.
Blast worked with a number of partners to put on events and give content a chance to be promoted at a higher level. These partners included the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
, RSC
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
, National Portrait Gallery, National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, Zoo Nation, and the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
.
On 24 January 2011, the BBC announced the closure of BBC Blast as part of a 25% cut to the BBC Online budget, resulting in a £34 million shortfall.
Programmes
BBC Programmes is a service of BBC Online which provides a page for every television and radio programme broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom. It was launched in October 2007 and gives each programme a eight digit alphanumericAlphanumeric
Alphanumeric is a combination of alphabetic and numeric characters, and is used to describe the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits or a text constructed from this collection. There are either 36 or 62 alphanumeric characters. The alphanumeric character set consists of the numbers 0 to...
identifier which is used to provide a permanent URL. It currently only holds data from the launch date plus a selection of high profile programmes (notably Natural History programmes and Radio 4 programmes), but Jana Bennett
Jana Bennett
Jana Bennett OBE is Director of Vision at the BBC. She took up the post in 2006, having been Director of Television from April 2002. She was previously Executive Vice President and General Manager at Discovery Communications in the US...
, Director of BBC Vision
BBC Vision
BBC Vision is a department of the BBC which incorporates the programme production, commissioning and broadcast operations including BBC Television...
, said in June 2008 that the BBC will eventually add a page for each programme it has broadcast over its history to the service.
BBC Programmes is available as HTML and RDF/XML and JSON.
The BBC Programme Catalogue
BBC Programme Catalogue
The BBC Programme Catalogue is an online archive of the entire BBC back catalogue of TV and radio programmes. The catalogue is for internal use by the BBC although for a time a beta online version was available to the public...
is an internal archive of the BBC back catalogue which was briefly available online to the public in beta.
Streaming media
A service, called BBC iPlayerBBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer, commonly shortened to iPlayer, is an internet television and radio service, developed by the BBC to extend its former RealPlayer-based and other streamed video clip content to include whole TV shows....
, was launched in December 2007, which allows users to download both radio and TV content for up to seven days after broadcast. The television version allows users to either stream programmes or to download them using peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
and DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
technology.
Initially streams were generally broadcast in the RealAudio
RealAudio
RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is...
and RealVideo
RealVideo
RealVideo is a suite of proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks – the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and is at version 10. RealVideo is supported on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and several mobile...
formats controlled by RealNetworks
RealNetworks
RealNetworks, Inc. is a provider of Internet media delivery software and services based in Downtown Seattle, Washington, United States. The company is the creator of RealAudio, a compressed audio format; RealVideo, a compressed video format; RealPlayer, a media player; RealDownloader, a download...
and the BBC drew criticism with some for using those closed formats which, at the time, could only be played using RealPlayer
RealPlayer
RealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...
. In response to such criticisms, the BBC negotiated a deal with RealNetworks a 'cut-down' version of RealPlayer which did not contain as much advertising and marketing.
Windows Media
Windows Media
Windows Media is a multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit with several application programming interfaces and a number of prebuilt technologies, and is the replacement of NetShow technologies.The Windows Media SDK...
has also been adopted and since Autumn 2006, a Windows Media stream of all national BBC radio stations has been available.
More recently, the BBC has been experimenting with MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
downloads and podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
ing facilities for an increasing number of radio shows, with a high level of success; a less publicised trial of Ogg Vorbis streams for certain programmes was less successful, and has now been discontinued.
During major events, the BBC often features liveblogs
Liveblogging
A liveblog is a blog post which is intended to provide a rolling textual coverage of an ongoing event, similar to Live television or live radio. Liveblogging has increased in usage by news organizations and blogging establishments since the mid-2000s, when they were initially used to broadcast...
which publish the most recent text and image posts from BBC corespondents; particularly-significant political events may pair live blogs with live video streams or recorded video loops relevant to the event.
Tracking cookies and privacy policy
BBC Online uses several third-party companies to log information from users, by means of cookies. The BBC lists the companies it uses in its privacy policyPrivacy policy
Privacy policy is a statement or a legal document that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses and manages a customer or client's data...
:
- Nielsen/Net RatingsNielsen RatingsNielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
and SageMetrics - Nedstat
- WebsidestoryWebSideStoryWebSideStory, Inc., founded by Blaise Barrelet on September 10, 1996 as a website traffic analysis tool and links directory to market the web analytics product Hitbox and HBX. The company went public on September 28, 2004 . On May 9, 2007, the company rebranded itself as Visual Sciences, Inc. In...
- DoubleclickDoubleClickDoubleClick is a subsidiary of Google that develops and provides Internet ad serving services. Its clients include agencies, marketers and publishers who serve customers like Microsoft, General Motors, Coca-Cola, Motorola, L'Oréal, Palm, Inc., Apple Inc., Visa USA, Nike, Carlsberg among others...
- BangoBango plcBango provides technology that enables commerce on the mobile web. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange .Bango products allow the collection of payment for on-line content and services and provide web analytics for mobile marketing campaigns and sites.Bango provides the Mobile Payment...
Users that block certain of these tracking domains will find certain parts of the BBC's websites inaccessible.
Funding
The BBC's site was initially entirely free from advertisingAdvertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
, this was due to the BBC's funding, derived primarily from compulsory television licence
Television licence
A television licence is an official licence required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts...
fees from UK viewers. BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
who exploit BBC brands commercially have had several attempts at launching services online including Beeb.com in the late 1990s.
In 2006, the BBC began making controversial plans to raise revenue by including advertising on the international version of BBC News Online
BBC News Online
BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. The website is the most popular news website in the United Kingdom and forms a major part of BBC Online ....
accessed from outside the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. BBC Online is currently freely available worldwide (via various URLs including bbc.com/news) but planned video services and a lower than expected licence fee settlement paid for by UK residents only led to the BBC introducing banner advertisements to the site from November 2007. The BBC Trust
BBC Trust
The BBC Trust is the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It is operationally independent of BBC management and external bodies, and aims to act in the best interests of licence fee payers....
approved the plans for introducing advertisements which also involved creating bbc.com as a part of BBC Worldwide. Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the Trust, confirmed the BBC would not charge for online news following News International
News International
News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....
's planned introduction of charges for online content.
Prior to this there had been criticism from some, as web users outside the UK could use the services (including the entire BBC radio services) without having to pay for them. In addition, where rights to sporting events (such as certain football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
or cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
matches) do not include international online coverage, users from outside the UK are blocked from listening to commentaries.
On 24 January 2011, it was announced that the BBC was to cut its online budget by 25% or £34 million. To cope with this, many BBC websites would be closed including BBC Switch
BBC Switch
BBC Switch was the brand for BBC content aimed at UK teenagers. The brand launched on Saturday 20 October 2007 on BBC Two And ceased broadcasting on Saturday 17 December 2010...
, BBC Blast, 6-0-6
6-0-6
6-0-6 is a football phone-in, broadcast on BBC Radio Five Live throughout the football season; when the programme started, it typically went on air at 6:06pm on a matchday . It covers topics relating to the current affairs of football in the United Kingdom. It currently airs on Saturdays and...
, BBC raw, Video Nation
Video Nation
Video Nation was a BBC television project in social anthropology and audience interactivity. Beginning in 1993, the BBC encouraged people to record their lives on video. These video diaries were then shown on BBC TV and, from 2001-2011, were included on the BBC's website at .The original project...
, and planned to sell the Douglas Adams created website h2g2
H2g2
h2g2 is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project engaged in the construction of, in its own words, "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the science fiction comedy series...
, as well as the automation of many programme websites and radio websites.
Graf report
In early 2004, the site was made the focus of a government review, launched by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, led by Philip Graf. Sections of the UK internet industry had argued that the BBC site offered things that were available in the commercial sector, creating unnecessary competition.The review was published in July 2004 and it was recommended that the BBC "prioritise news, current affairs, education and information which is of value to the citizen." In response the BBC also shut down a small number of sections of the site, including the Soaps section.
In November 2004, the Governors of the BBC announced a newer, much more tightly drawn remit for bbc.co.uk as part of their response to the review. They also announced, as Graf had recommended, a new approach towards external providers which will see bbc.co.uk aiming to spend at least 25% of its eligible budget on content and services through independent commissions by the end of 2006/07.
The implementation of the Graf report has seen the popular message boards in the BBC Sport section shut down, as the BBC tries to promote its 606 brand, but these changes have proved unpopular as the interface has proven unusable and large numbers of content providers have abandoned the BBC site.
Cult TV
From 1999 to 2005, the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
ran a popular sub-site called Cult TV. This sub-site had news, star interviews, trivia, and other content popular with fans of the cult TV shows they covered. Examples of covered TV shows include The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
, Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Farscape
Farscape
Farscape is an Australian-American science fiction television series filmed in Australia and produced originally for the Nine Network. The series was conceived by Rockne S. O'Bannon and produced by Jim Henson Productions and Hallmark Entertainment...
and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (TV series)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is a BBC television adaptation of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy broadcast in January and February 1981 on BBC Two...
.
On 15 July 2005, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
announced that the site was closing as of the end of the month, although the Doctor Who section would be unaffected as the series was an ongoing BBC concern. The announcement explained that this was "part of the restructuring of the BBC's online activities". It was promised that some of the content would be moved to new places on bbc.co.uk, although as of March 2008 it is currently still all online at the no-longer-updated Cult site. In recent years, some of the content covered in the Cult section was included in the BBC's Archive section, such as content and information on the 25th Anniversary of Children's BBC
CBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
.