BBC Online

• 1. Introduction

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  BBC Online paid $375,000 for the bbc.com domain name in 1999, buying it from a company called Boston Business Computing. The BBC kept that price confidential for six years. That caution captures a persistent tension. BBC Online has always been a publicly funded service working in contested commercial territory. Its rivals in the UK internet industry argued repeatedly that it had no business being there. How did a handful of regional web pages become a network of some 400 top-level domains? Who convinced the British government to direct licence fee revenue into the internet? And what happened when budget pressure eventually forced difficult choices about which parts of that network to close?

• 2. Dial-Up Beginnings

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  The BBC Networking Club launched on the 11th of May 1994, created by BBC Education as a non-profit subscription service. A joining fee of £25, plus a monthly charge of £12, gave members access to the club. What they received included a bulletin board for sharing information and real-time conversation, along with a dial-up internet connection. It was an early type of social networking site, operated by a public broadcaster.

  The main www.bbc.co.uk website had appeared a few weeks earlier, in April 1994. It carried regional information and content from the Open University Production Centre. By September 1994, the BBC had added a commercial transcription service via FTP. At its peak, that service held 122 accounts, including FBI bureaus around the world, each pulling daily updates from 12 feeds.

  A team called the BBC Multimedia Centre, led by Martin Freeth, was working to bring new media into the wider corporation. Within 12 months of launch, the website was hosting online discussion groups, web pages for selected programmes, and free pages for associate members. The service was growing. Turning it into something formally funded as a public service in its own right required a bigger argument. That argument would reach the level of the BBC Charter itself.

• 3. The Third Medium

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  John Birt, then Director General of the BBC, believed internet services belonged at the centre of the BBC's mission, not at the margins. He sought government approval to channel licence fee revenue into online activity. He described planned BBC internet services as the "third medium," joining television and radio. The case required a formal change to the BBC Charter. It succeeded. BBC Online launched officially at the www.bbc.co.uk address on the 28th of April 1997.

  BBC Worldwide, the corporation's commercial arm, launched beeb.com alongside the licence-fee-funded service. Beeb.com featured content from Radio Times, Top Gear, and Top of the Pops. A three-year agreement with International Computers Limited underpinned the commercial venture. BBC Worldwide wanted commercial footholds in the emerging consumer internet; ICL wanted experience supplying the media industry.

  A duplication problem gradually emerged. Once BBC Online launched its own pages for Top Gear and Top of the Pops, beeb.com had less to offer. The site refocused as an online shopping guide and closed in 2002. Its URL later redirected to the BBC Shop website, also operated by BBC Worldwide.

• 4. Identities and Redesigns

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  On the 7th of November 2001, BBC Online relaunched under a new name: BBCi. According to the BBC, the "i" stood for both "interactivity" and "innovation." The choice reflected a wider fashion. Prefixes and suffixes using the letter i to signal digital connectivity were widespread in the technology industry at the time. BBCi was intended as an umbrella for the BBC's digital services across the web, digital teletext, interactive television, and mobile platforms. A standard navigation bar appeared across every BBC website page, offering categories including TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, and an A-Z Index. The design echoed the i-bar already used on BBCi interactive television.

  On the 6th of May 2004, after three years of consistent use, the BBC dropped the BBCi label from its website. The service became bbc.co.uk, taking the name from the URL most people were already typing. Interactive television kept the BBCi name until 2008.

  A redesigned homepage arrived in beta on the 14th of December 2007. Users could customise it by adding, removing, and rearranging content widgets. The approach drew on ideas from Facebook and iGoogle. It also incorporated the clock design used on BBC television in the 1970s into the header. The beta became the live homepage on the 27th of February 2008. On the 30th of January 2010, a further redesign appeared in beta. It expanded the widget approach and added a "Media Zone" spanning the full width of the page.

  A new homepage entered beta on the 21st of September 2011, built around a revolving carousel of BBC content. Filters let users limit the carousel by topic: entertainment, lifestyle, knowledge, or news. A header displayed the date, the time using the vintage BBC clock, and weather symbols for the next three days. The new homepage replaced the previous one on the 30th of November 2011. James Thornett explained the changes that day in a blog post. User complaints arrived quickly; the design nonetheless drew critical recognition. The Design Museum nominated it as one of their Designs of the Year in 2012. It had already won a Peabody Award in 2011, cited for having "continued, expanded and enhanced one of the greatest traditions in electronic media." In November 2011, the BBC also launched its Connected Studio initiative. It ran workshops for independent web designers to collaborate with BBC staff on new approaches to existing services.

• 5. Rivals and Reviews

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  In early 2004, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport commissioned a review of BBC Online. Philip Graf led it. Sections of the UK internet industry had argued that BBC Online's publicly funded scale was distorting the commercial market. The Graf report appeared in July 2004. It recommended the BBC prioritise news, current affairs, education, and information of genuine public value.

  The BBC Governors responded in November 2004. They set a tighter remit for bbc.co.uk and adopted Graf's recommendation on independent commissioning. At least 25% of the site's eligible budget would go to content from independent providers. That target applied by the end of the 2006-07 financial year. The Soaps section was among the early closures. The report also led to the shutdown of popular message boards in the BBC Sport section. The BBC tried to redirect that audience to its 606 discussion service. That migration proved unpopular; many regular contributors abandoned the BBC site altogether.

  On the 26th of February 2010, The Times reported that Mark Thompson, then Director General, had proposed cutting the BBC's web output by 50%. Online staff numbers and budgets would fall by 25%. On the 2nd of March 2010, the BBC confirmed it would reduce website spending by 25%. It would also close BBC 6 Music and the Asian Network. The formally confirmed cuts arrived on the 24th of January 2011. They created a £34 million shortfall. BBC Switch, BBC Blast, and 6-0-6 closed as a result. The BBC also announced plans to sell h2g2.

• 6. A Network of Platforms

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  BBC News Online launched in 1997 alongside the official BBC Online service. By 2012, it was drawing around 2 billion page views each month. The site covers national and regional UK news, international reporting, and analysis from correspondents. A Magazine section carries longer features.

  BBC iPlayer arrived in December 2007. Initially, it allowed users to download radio and television content for up to seven days after broadcast. The television version offered both streaming and peer-to-peer downloads, using DRM technology to manage distribution. Early streams had relied on RealAudio and RealVideo formats from RealNetworks. Critics objected to those proprietary formats and the requirement to use RealPlayer. The BBC negotiated a cut-down version of RealPlayer with less advertising. Windows Media joined as an alternative. From Autumn 2006, a Windows Media stream covered all national BBC radio stations.

  BBC Programmes launched in October 2007. It gives every BBC television and radio programme a permanent page, identified by an eight or eleven digit code. Each code creates a stable, permanent URL. Jana Bennett, Director of BBC Vision, said in June 2008 that the BBC planned to add a page for every programme it had broadcast. The BBC Programme Catalogue, an internal archive of the full back catalogue, was briefly made available to the public in beta before being withdrawn.

  BBC Sounds launched in November 2018, replacing the iPlayer Radio service. It covers streaming, catch-up, radio, and podcasts, available across phones, tablets, computers, and smart televisions.

  Bitesize offers revision support to teenagers; Learning Zone Class Clips gives teachers access to video from BBC educational programmes. The Language site covers phrases in 40 languages. Until 2013, BBC Online also hosted a health information site with content reviewed by medical professionals. It was withdrawn once the NHS Choices service began covering similar ground. Your Paintings catalogued every painting in public ownership in the UK. The BBC noted plans to eventually consolidate its learning and knowledge sites into a single, easier-to-access destination.

• 7. Creative Corners

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  In February 2001, the BBC incorporated h2g2 into its network. The website had been created independently by Douglas Adams, in the spirit of his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Once part of BBC Online, h2g2's DNA software replaced the BBC's existing message board system, which had used an older platform called Howerd. Several other sites created after the acquisition also ran on the DNA software, including the Collective magazine site.

  BBC Blast ran from 2002 to 2011, aimed at 13- to 19-year-olds. It offered online mentors and free events and workshops across the United Kingdom. Work experience schemes ran separately for adults between 18 and 25. The annual BBC Blast tour built partnerships with major institutions. These included the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the National Portrait Gallery. The National Theatre, Zoo Nation, and the British Film Institute were also partners. Workshops brought participants into contact with rapper Akala, actor and director Noel Clarke, and artists Antony Gormley and Jake and Dinos Chapman. Singer-songwriter Jay Sean also appeared, as did rapper Chipmunk. Among the artists who gave early performances through the tour were Rizzle Kicks and Ed Sheeran. An annual season on BBC2 gave participants the chance to broadcast their films to a wider audience.

  On the 15th of July 2005, the BBC announced that its Cult TV subsite would close by the end of that month. The subsite had run since 1999. It covered fan-oriented content around programmes including Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, Farscape, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The Doctor Who section was exempted from the closure; that series was still in active BBC production. The rest of the Cult site went offline to new updates. As of January 2017, the archived pages remained accessible online. Some of that material had since been absorbed into the BBC's growing Archive section.