BBC to share video news with UK newspapers

Posted by Emma Heald on July 28, 2009 at 9:16 AM

The BBC is to share video news with major British newspapers, in what the Guardian described as a "landmark deal." The first papers involved are the Daily Mail, the Guardian, the Independent and the Telegraph, but the publicly funded corporation plans to make the video news content available to other UK-based news websites also.

The BBC will provide a limited range of video news content in four public service areas: UK politics, business, health and science and technology. The material will be given to the papers at no cost and is intended to supplement their own work. According to the Guardian, the BBC has been clear that it has "no intention" of extending the range of content to genres such as entertainment and sports news.

There are conditions to use of the material: branded BBC content will appear in a branded video player, and there must be no advertising around the clips. It will be geo-blocked so that it can only be viewed in the UK.

"We regard this initiative as a core part of the BBC working more effectively as a public service partner, with other media organisations utilising BBC news content," Mark Byford, deputy director general and head of journalism at the BBC told the Guardian. "We hope this wider distribution will extend audience reach to BBC content. However, we are only providing material already produced on the BBC's news website and restricted to certain core public service genres."

Fears about the demise of local news have been widespread in the UK and there has been government pressure on the BBC to come to the aid of its rivals, amidst concerns that the BBC might become the only source of news in some areas. The BBC has a guaranteed income from its licence fee and the government has considered whether some of this revenue should be redirected to other sources of news. The BBC is therefore seems to be taking steps to preempt such a move by forming such partnerships with commercial news producers. The BBC's proposals, which include making its iPlayer technology available to rivals, were outlined back in April.

Source: Guardian