BBC Online
BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the children's sites CBBC and CBeebies, and learning services such as Bitesize and Own It. The BBC has had an online presence supporting its TV and radio programmes and web-only initiatives since April 1994, but did not launch officially until 28 April 1997, following government approval to fund it by TV licence fee revenue as a service in its own right. Throughout its history, the online plans of the BBC have been subject to competition and complaint from its commercial rivals, which has resulted in various public consultations and government reviews to investigate their claims 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 rebranded as BBCi before being named bbc.co.uk. It was then renamed BBC Online again in 2008, although the service uses the branding "BBC".
On 26 February 2010 The Times claimed that Mark Thompson, then 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 would 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, including BBC Switch, BBC Blast, 6-0-6, and the announcement of plans to sell the Douglas Adams created site h2g2.
History
Early years
www.bbc.co.uk was introduced in April 1994 with some regional information and Open University Production Centre content. By September, the first commercial service launched, a transcription service via FTP server. At its peak, it had 122 accounts, including FBI bureaus around the world, taking daily updates from 12 feeds.Within 12 months, the BBC website offered "Auntie" online discussion groups; web pages for select web-related programs and BBC departments; free web pages for associate members.
The BBC Multimedia Centre was a team led by Martin Freeth to introduce new media across the corporation.
BBC Networking Club
BBC Networking Club www.bbcnc.org.uk was launched by BBC Education on 11 May 1994 as a non-profit 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.BBC Online and beeb.com
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 April 1997.As well as the licence fee funded www.bbc.co.uk, BBC Worldwide launched the commercially funded beeb.com, featuring mostly entertainment focused content, with sites including Radio Times, Top Gear and Top of the Pops. The development of these services formed the basis of a three-year agreement between BBC Worldwide and International Computers Limited, intended to assist the former in exploiting commercial opportunities in the "new medium" of the consumer Internet, while permitting the latter to gain commercial and technical experience and to position itself as a supplier to the media industry. Later, BBC Online launched licence-fee funded web sites for Top of the Pops and Top Gear, resulting in some duplication.
Beeb.com was later refocussed as an online shopping guide, and was closed in 2002. beeb.com later redirected to the BBC Shop website, run by BBC Worldwide.
In 1999, the BBC bought the bbc.com domain name, previously owned by Boston Business Computing, for $375,000, but the price of this purchase was not revealed until six years later., www.bbcnc.org.uk no longer exists.
BBCi
In 2001, BBC Online was rebranded as BBCi; the website launched on 7 November 2001. 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" prefixes and suffixes 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 category-based navigation: Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate, Where I Live, A-Z Index and a search function. 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
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 while still retaining users' customisations. The new homepage also incorporated the clock design used in the 1970s on the BBC's television service into the large header and a box containing featured content of the website. The new BBC homepage left beta on Wednesday, 27 February 2008 to serve as the new BBC Homepage under the same URL as the previous version.
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 different international versions to be more easily altered. 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 homepage 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 did not realise it was the homepage. As a result, they launched a new version that featured as a centrepiece 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. In a blog post from the same day, James Thornett explained the changes – while the post attracted complaints from users disliking the refreshed layout, the new-look site was critically acclaimed and nominated by the Design Museum as one of their Designs of the Year in 2012. It also won a Peabody Award in 2011 because it "continued, expanded and enhanced one of the greatest traditions in electronic media."
Content
BBC Online contains a variety of content ranging from News, Sport, Music, Science, Technology and Entertainment, amongst other things. 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.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 Archives, 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.