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BBC THREE versus BBC SCOTLAND

Is it time for the BBC to make a really tough decision? (November 2020)

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JO
johnnyboy Founding member
An update on the progress of BBC Scotland in The Times this morning.

It's behind a paywall so here are the pertinent parts...

Quote:
"Ofcom said that its flagship news programme The Nine suffered low viewing figures and failed to meet its goal of attracting a younger audience.

In their annual report on the BBC, the media regulator said that the show attracted average viewing figures of 15,890 per episode during its first year.

The average audience among 16-34 year-olds was “very low” with under 1,000 tuning into the programme which is presented by Martin Geissler and Rebecca Curran.

Its average audience share in Scotland was just 0.84 per cent compared with 28 per cent for Reporting Scotland on BBC One Scotland."


Quote:
"The channel is still establishing itself with audiences in Scotland there were early indications “that the channel may have had an early positive impact on viewers’ impressions of the BBC”"


In the same paper, Nicola Sturgeon announced that she wants to hold a referendum "as soon as next year".

With a referendum looking increasingly likely to return a "Yes" vote, is there an argument for closing the channel and using the funding instead to relaunch BBC THREE with a bigger budget and as a linear channel?

In recent discussions on the merit of relaunching BBC THREE as a linear channel, the argument was put forward that linear channels do a very effective job of promoting a channel's content.

Another article in today's Times stated that "16 to 34-year-olds spend less than an hour a day with the BBC, and that’s going down".

Does it increase the Beeb's chance of long-term survival to invest much more in programming for 16-34 year olds with a relaunched BBC THREE as this demographic contains the licence payers of the future (and of now too)?

It's a tough one but, if I were making the decision, I would choose to spend the money on BBC THREE even though this would mean that the already unfair gap between what Scots spent on the BBC and what the BBC spent on Scotland widened further.

And, if our Scottish brothers and sisters choose to leave the Union, the BBC's investment in the channel would turn out to be unintentionally wasted anyway.

PS. The source for this article in this post is The Times. I know and understand that many people dislike strongly and distrust the Murdoch press - not an unreasonable position, in my opinion. However, I'd love to know Forumers' opinions on the topic so I would be grateful if we could stick to the subject rather than talk about Murdoch et al.
MO
Mockah
I'd have to agree with you, especially that the BBC's losing their 16-34 demographic, they could potentially open BBC Three.
RD
Roger Darthwell
johnnyboy posted:
An update on the progress of BBC Scotland in The Times this morning.

It's behind a paywall so here are the pertinent parts...

Quote:
"Ofcom said that its flagship news programme The Nine suffered low viewing figures and failed to meet its goal of attracting a younger audience.

In their annual report on the BBC, the media regulator said that the show attracted average viewing figures of 15,890 per episode during its first year.

The average audience among 16-34 year-olds was “very low” with under 1,000 tuning into the programme which is presented by Martin Geissler and Rebecca Curran.

Its average audience share in Scotland was just 0.84 per cent compared with 28 per cent for Reporting Scotland on BBC One Scotland."


Quote:
"The channel is still establishing itself with audiences in Scotland there were early indications “that the channel may have had an early positive impact on viewers’ impressions of the BBC”"


In the same paper, Nicola Sturgeon announced that she wants to hold a referendum "as soon as next year".

With a referendum looking increasingly likely to return a "Yes" vote, is there an argument for closing the channel and using the funding instead to relaunch BBC THREE with a bigger budget and as a linear channel?

In recent discussions on the merit of relaunching BBC THREE as a linear channel, the argument was put forward that linear channels do a very effective job of promoting a channel's content.

Another article in today's Times stated that "16 to 34-year-olds spend less than an hour a day with the BBC, and that’s going down".

Does it increase the Beeb's chance of long-term survival to invest much more in programming for 16-34 year olds with a relaunched BBC THREE as this demographic contains the licence payers of the future (and of now too)?

It's a tough one but, if I were making the decision, I would choose to spend the money on BBC THREE even though this would mean that the already unfair gap between what Scots spent on the BBC and what the BBC spent on Scotland widened further.

And, if our Scottish brothers and sisters choose to leave the Union, the BBC's investment in the channel would turn out to be unintentionally wasted anyway.

PS. The source for this article in this post is The Times. I know and understand that many people dislike strongly and distrust the Murdoch press - not an unreasonable position, in my opinion. However, I'd love to know Forumers' opinions on the topic so I would be grateful if we could stick to the subject rather than talk about Murdoch et al.

I am going to answer with this https://twitter.com/BbcBring/status/1331932216507686914 anyway mate you are spot on!
JA
JAS84
Lets embed that.


RD
Roger Darthwell
JAS84 posted:
Lets embed that.



Thank you so much for embedding that tweet, I would like to know how did you do that?
BR
Brekkie
Click on the Twitter symbol in the reply function.

This shouldn't be about BBC3 v BBC Scotland, it should be about the need for both. The BBC3 as a linear channel argument seems to change weekly, whilst I don't think the BBC Scotland argument is much different now to when it launched and I'm not really convinced Scotland is now better served than it was with a Scottish variant of BBC2. As little watched as it may be though I do think Scotland deserves to have something of the quality of the Nine versus what I think has become a fairly tired Reporting Scotland, but that certainly doesn't justify a whole channel. It is by their own admission almost fodder against the strong primetime 9pm offerings to avoid the channel having to put their programming in the slot.
RD
Roger Darthwell
Brekkie posted:
Click on the Twitter symbol in the reply function.

This shouldn't be about BBC3 v BBC Scotland, it should be about the need for both. The BBC3 as a linear channel argument seems to change weekly, whilst I don't think the BBC Scotland argument is much different now to when it launched and I'm not really convinced Scotland is now better served than it was with a Scottish variant of BBC2. As little watched as it may be though I do think Scotland deserves to have something of the quality of the Nine versus what I think has become a fairly tired Reporting Scotland, but that certainly doesn't justify a whole channel. It is by their own admission almost fodder against the strong primetime 9pm offerings to avoid the channel having to put their programming in the slot.

Thank you for your explanation Sir, although I do think that BBC3 needs to return as a TV channel mainly because research has found out that the online only BBC3 has lost many viewers in these past few years https://www.mediamole.co.uk/entertainment/broadcasting/news/new-research-supports-argument-for-restoration-of-bbc-three-as-tv-channel_413613.html This is what I love the most about this forum, I really like exchanging opinions Smile
ToasterMan and AndrewPSSP gave kudos
ME
mediachris
With regards to BBC Three returning as a linear channel, is it needed? I think the strong programmes for Three before it moved to an "online only" portal were the Seth McFarlane imports and the EastEnders repeat. As a former viewer I really enjoyed the imports and also 60 seconds in between programmes and think there could be room for a similar "The Nine" programme on Three.

Would 16-34 year olds return to watching BBC Three with the content currently on offer?
RD
Roger Darthwell
mediachris posted:
With regards to BBC Three returning as a linear channel, is it needed? I think the strong programmes for Three before it moved to an "online only" portal were the Seth McFarlane imports and the EastEnders repeat. As a former viewer I really enjoyed the imports and also 60 seconds in between programmes and think there could be room for a similar "The Nine" programme on Three.

Would 16-34 year olds return to watching BBC Three with the content currently on offer?

I would return ASAP! But the channel needs to be relaunched in order to fully find out, until that happens these are only hypothesis
Rexogamer, Mockah and Sh1ruba gave kudos
RI
Rijowhi
Bring back BBC Three? Not for me, I think they should scrap the brand completely along with BBC4. I would however like to see the BBC dramatically increase their production for Online Services, which looking to the future is the direction I think they should be heading in. I also think the commissioning office for this ‘BBC Online’ service should be based in Birmingham as Midlands Licence Fee payers have had a rough deal in recent times (one of several reasons I no longer support the payment of the Licence Fee).
JF
JetixFann450
In my honest opinion, the BBC should at least try and attempt online linear streaming a la Pluto TV for stuff like Doctor Who marathons or in this case, BBC Three. Not to mention, the idea of relaunching the channel as a linear outlet doesn't sound too difficult, what with most having their fancy 4K tellies which have BBC iPlayer at times pre-installed.

Having an outlet for young talent would definitely patch up the leak that is the 16-34 audience from the BBC. It's not that they're completely lost, what with popular shows like RuPaul and Strictly, but that audience is already watching stuff from YouTube, which is a stronger force to youth television than E4 and ITV2 combined, especially considering the amount of animated series, game reviews and generally easily accessible content dwarfs what BBC Three wants to be and then some.

Recently, a few dead cable brands have been rising from the grave, mainly the video game network G4 in the United States and Court TV which launched over here in the UK (the original was replaced by TruTV in 2008). But here's the thing though, G4 came back after the demand of video content started rising and Comcast Spectacor realized they could make a profit off this new frontier of network television, not to mention a thriving community who actively supports the channel even since closure.

Who's to say BBC Three will get the same audience? I think what they need to do is to think about a specific generalized format, maybe focus on new British talent off YouTube and TikTok? Try to compete with G4 and make gaming content? It's these ideas that would make BBC Three less cluttered and sterile from viewership. I think the BBC were right to try and cost-cut but they didn't realize that no one is going to watch whatever they want even if they have the (BBC) choice because they're already entertained by other outlets.

I dread the day when CBBC gets cut for the same reason, with the expectation that children will move to the iPlayer to continue watching rather than moving onto 1 hour compilations of slime on YouTube Kids.
RD
Roger Darthwell
JetixFann450 posted:
In my honest opinion, the BBC should at least try and attempt online linear streaming a la Pluto TV for stuff like Doctor Who marathons or in this case, BBC Three. Not to mention, the idea of relaunching the channel as a linear outlet doesn't sound too difficult, what with most having their fancy 4K tellies which have BBC iPlayer at times pre-installed.

Having an outlet for young talent would definitely patch up the leak that is the 16-34 audience from the BBC. It's not that they're completely lost, what with popular shows like RuPaul and Strictly, but that audience is already watching stuff from YouTube, which is a stronger force to youth television than E4 and ITV2 combined, especially considering the amount of animated series, game reviews and generally easily accessible content dwarfs what BBC Three wants to be and then some.

Recently, a few dead cable brands have been rising from the grave, mainly the video game network G4 in the United States and Court TV which launched over here in the UK (the original was replaced by TruTV in 2008). But here's the thing though, G4 came back after the demand of video content started rising and Comcast Spectacor realized they could make a profit off this new frontier of network television, not to mention a thriving community who actively supports the channel even since closure.

Who's to say BBC Three will get the same audience? I think what they need to do is to think about a specific generalized format, maybe focus on new British talent off YouTube and TikTok? Try to compete with G4 and make gaming content? It's these ideas that would make BBC Three less cluttered and sterile from viewership. I think the BBC were right to try and cost-cut but they didn't realize that no one is going to watch whatever they want even if they have the (BBC) choice because they're already entertained by other outlets.

I dread the day when CBBC gets cut for the same reason, with the expectation that children will move to the iPlayer to continue watching rather than moving onto 1 hour compilations of slime on YouTube Kids.

You are absolutely spot on!

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