BBC Three - Trust's final decision published

Lets make some comparisons between 6 Music and BBC Three and the reasons they were under threat.

6 Music: Niche music station targeting middle-aged men which at the time had a similar share to Radio 3, yet R3 is part of our cultural heritage, where as 6 Music played a mix of dad rock, Motown and alternative music.

BBC Three: Youth television channel targeting young people, including a BAME audience. Worthy programming, but infamous for repeats of Family Guy at 11pm nightly which was the perception among the Daily Mail public.

6 Music had a very influential campaign of people including politicians who had the clout to persuade the BBC Trust to keep the station going. It has also been successful on gaining a more viable audience thanks to the BBC publicity machine.

BBC Three's audience is made of a disenfranchised youth and some of the Soho tv industry crowd who don't with respect have any influence, which makes it easier and less controversial to close over a niche but influential music station which in comparison to BBC Three needs less money to operate.

The BBC also deliberately ran down BBC Three by other channels poaching their best formats, leaving Three with some niche docs and comedies, along with the Family Guy and Top Gear repeats.

I see there's been some more friendly banter between E4 & BBC Three...

No words needed ... just lots of (((HUGS))) for you .@bbcthree xx

— E4 (@E4Tweets) November 26, 2015

@E4Tweets but imagine how much fun we'll be when we're awake 24/7? 😘

— BBC Three (@bbcthree) November 26, 2015

@bbcthree 24/7 is something I'm used to ... I'll get you some energy drinks ... you might need them :p

— E4 (@E4Tweets) November 26, 2015

IF other channels can provide those formats then what is the point in the channel? expect the niche stuff.

The point of public service television is to serve an audience which isn't adequately provided by commercial channels.

If you look at the formats poached by BBC One and Two, they have been tweaked to make them more accessible to an older audience. Don't Tell the Bride bombed on BBC One after it moved. It was too much of a 'Three' show to transfer over, while Russell Howard's Good News has an guest segment and Backchat with Jack Whitehall also had an older slant to satisfy BBC Two's older middle class audience, which changed the show all together.

This audience will only have Radio 1 (and 1Xtra for BAME) as a mainstream PSB outlet for them. Radio 1 unlike BBC Three doesn't satisfy all of the audience as it has to be mainstream in nature during the day. The diverse music programming at night is tokenism as people tend to listen to the radio during daytime hours.

What a hugely disappointing decision. I wonder how many viewers will see the channel now once it goes online only by February.

It is disappointing news for a lot of Irish viewers in particular as it leaves them in a position to be potentially locked out of using the iPlayer because of it being geo-blocked once the BBC closes the circumvention loophole later on in the future.

I wonder how the sports and Glastonbury coverage will be provided now from next year. It will probably be a definite goer for BBC Two to get that coverage next time round if some of these rights have to be broadcast on linear TV.

Let's hope the BBC Red button doesn't close in the meantime. Fingers crossed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly analysis on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34932688 notes...

It looks like the amount of new 'long form' content is suspected to be fairly little, thus rather getting around the Trust's conditions.

Well it's 2/7, not 24/7 - the BBC's trust requirement for all long form content to be on BBC1/2 equates to just two hours of shows a week. It's around the 5 hour a week mark of new content on BBC3 at the moment, and that's after 18 months of the channel being run down and not including live events, films etc. Even pre-BBC3 the audience was better served with 90 minutes at 6pm on BBC2 plus an evening or two a week from 9-10.30pm.

The CBBC extended hours seem strange too - they're saying 7-8pm will be target at 6-9 year olds and 8-9pm at 9-12 year olds. If it's only repeats in the slot, as previously stated, seems really stupid to switch from what I assume it content aimed at the older audience in the 6pm hour to younger audiences for an hour. It just highlights how ill-thought out the plans are, and also how 12-18 year olds aren't being served by the corporation at all.

Apparently a Mrs S. Cameron (of Downing Street, SW1A) is a fan too, though I'm sure that had nothing to do with its saving.

They are not being served because they are not demanding a service. It's dead simple, not some kind of conspiracy.

Barb data for the week ending 15 Nov shows the most watched show being Josh with 551k viewers. This is a BBC Three commission.

This. This. This.


AIUI 80% of the BBC Three target audience are expected to stop watching BBC Three shows after this move. And effectively it has moved BBC Three shows to a pay-TV zone. It's not possible to watch online content without some form of broadband or mobile data subscription - unless you are able to watch in a library I guess.

The much-vaunted "all our audience watch on catch-up figures" - most of them were watching on Sky+/Freeview+/Freesat+... The iPlayer contribution to BBC Three's +7 and consolidated figures was tiny.

Brilliant.

Meanwhile Radio Three, Radio Four, BBC Two and BBC Four continue to super-serve middle-England...

It's a very sad day.

Depending on who operates the library, you get an hour free and the option to pay £1 for another.

So even if you went to watch a 90 minute programme on the BBC Three side of iPlayer, you'd be again in the Pay TV zone. The BAFTA award winning Murdered by my Boyfriend was 65 mins.

Commercial channels who serve BBC Three's demographic don't have the range of output that BBC Three currently shows on linear platforms.