BBC Celebrates fifteen years of BBC Online
It was December 1997 when the BBC launched their online presence with ‘BBC Online’. A decade and a half later the corporation are today celebrating the achievements of their web services.
“Since its inception, the BBC has led broadcasting innovation and was one of the first major organisations to develop a public-facing website. The BBC’s first web pages were developed from 1994 onwards, and in December 1997, bbc.co.uk was officially launched.” The beeb state.
The BBC are to mark the occasion from today onwards with a series of online interviews and videos to note the anniversary and explain the importance of the online role the corporation plays, past and present.
Ralph Rivera, Director, Future Media explains that “the digital revolution fundamentally changed how our audiences access news, information and programmes,” in a blog post for the anniversary.
From 3.9 million UK adults per week in September 2002, today the BBC’s website reaches around 22.7 million UK adults per week as of September 2012.
Last week the corporation surveyed a representative sample of 9,200 BBC website users, and asked them to choose from the top moments over the past 15 years of BBC Online.
Of those asked, 50 per cent said their top moment was the launch of BBC iPlayer, 15 per cent chose the launch of the BBC website in 1997, 8 per cent said the BBC’s first truly digital Olympics at the London 2012 Games this summer, and 5 per cent the launch of websites for children of all different ages – CBeebies and CBBC.
There have also been a few occasions of annoyance such as in 2004 when as part of the on-going look at the future of the BBC Television and Radio remit, a report commissioned by the then Labour government decided that the corporation should ‘redefine the remit of its online services’.
The outcome saw a hugely popular drama community Pure Soap axed while its Sports counterpart remained. The reasoning was it was ‘anti-competitive’ to other sites – only there was no other commercial site like Pure Soap.
“The Pure Soap team are apparently talking with the BBC to see if they can find a future for Pure Soap elsewhere, so we’ll let you know the outcome. Of course Pure Soap was such a good site even ITV linked to it for Crossroads rather than do their own site for many months!” said ATV Today reporter Mike Watkins at the time.
The site never returned as an independent venture although three years ago Channel 5 attempted a short-lived version entitled Holy Soap which was axed in June last year.
More information about 15 years of BBC Online can be found on the beeb’s website and also features on BBC News Online.
