Bits that caught my eye

Some odds and ends from the BBC's Future Plans - my chapter headings, not theirs !

A slow death for the News Channel

We will make a transition from rolling news to streaming news. BBC Newstream will be a new streaming offer for mobiles. It will be a more video-based service, complemented by audio, graphics and text live from BBC News. It offers the possibility of news that is personal, portable and on-demand.

Council and court reporting jobs

Under this proposal, the BBC would allocate licence fee funding to invest in a service that reports on councils, courts and public services in towns and cities across the UK. The aim is to put in place a network of 100 public service reporters across the country. Reporting would be available to the BBC but also, critically, to all reputable news organisations. In addition, while it would have to be impartial and would be run by the BBC, any news organisation— news agency, independent news provider, local paper as well as the BBC itself—could compete to win the contract to provide the reporting team for each area.

Data journalism

We propose to create a new hub for data journalism, which serves both the BBC and makes available data analysis for news organisations across the UK. It will look to partner a university in the UK, as the BBC seeks to build a world-class data journalism facility that informs local, national and global news coverage.

News Bank (doesn't sound that new)

The News Bank would make available all pieces of BBC video content produced by the BBC’s regional and local news teams to other media providers. Subject to rights and further discussion with the industry we would also look to share longer versions of content not broadcast, such as sports interviews and press conferences.

Local radio - clear as mud

We want BBC local radio to broaden its agenda to find new ways to reflect the cultural richness of their patch.

News online

We will deliver a different BBC News homepage in each Nation.

The Scottish Question unanswered

After devolution, the Scottish referendum and in a world where large aspects of public policy are devolved in the Nations, there is now a much stronger case for providing a different balance in how we serve audiences with the most relevant BBC News and current affairs. We look forward to exploring the various options with our partners, stakeholders, audiences and National Governments through the process of Charter Review.

We want Government money for World Service

We would aim for any increase in public funding for the World Service to be matched by external income for our other global news services over the Charter. This means commercial ambition; seeking revenue from audiences outside the UK; and being open to funding from governments and civil society

Mini-BBC-Spotify

We have developed a digital music proposal with the music industry, which builds on BBC Music’s Playlister. It would make the 50,000 tracks the BBC broadcasts every month available to listen online, for a limited period. Audiences would be able to access this music via playlists curated by the BBC, and they would be able to build their own playlists based on the music they hear and love on the BBC.

We want to keep doing online stuff, but others eventually will make the majority of the content

In online, we would aim to maximise the volume of competition in editorial output. 60%-70% of online content spend (i.e. almost all non-news and non-spor t spend) would be open for competition by the end of the next Charter period.

BBC Studios, BBC Store and Tim Davie will make us more money

We forecast that the impact of these new initiatives, coupled with continuing strong returns from the underlying BBC Worldwide por tfolio, would be around £1.2bn in cumulative returns to the public service BBC over the next five years—a more than 15% increase on returns over the previous five years.

No more money for Scotland

We will protect funding for the Nations, ensuring they are cut less than other areas, with our spending on services going down overall in real terms, we would not be able to reverse the decline in UK original content spend, invest in the World Service, or fund a net increase in spending in the Nations.