ABCe figures released today for a clutch of BBC consumer web sites almost certainly support the view that says it’s time to cut the BBC down to size.
Top Gear, Radio Times and Good Food websites recorded ABCe figures for June 2010 reporting 108,930, 84,086 and 71,013 daily average unique browsers respectively.
These are huge figures, in relative terms, for what are special interest publications. You’d be very hard pressed to make a case that the BBC brand and television tie-ups didn’t skew the market for consumer magazines and online sites.
According to Speed media-watcher Nick Bishop:
“The BBC’s defensive strategy appears to be to limit how much its reach is cut by demonstrating its scale. Accept they’re going to lose some battles but make sure they win most.”
The BBC is one of the UK’s greatest achievements. While it may distort the market, that does not mean that the market would be better should the BBC be weakened.
Does it deliver value for money? Without question. My licence fee is the best £/hour I spend. Could the Corporation be more efficient? What organisation couldn’t? Do I care about the spin off magazines… not really. While the BBC can make changes there it would be criminal to attack the core website (ie news, sport etc) or the majority of the TV/radio programming.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Stephen Waddington, Speed Communications. Speed Communications said: Web traffic to BBC consumer titles impressive but tough to defend http://goo.gl/fb/VOuFk (@wadds) #media #bbc #eabc [...]
@Richard Ellis – I wholly agree with your comment and I’m a firm defender of the BBC’s output. But if you’re an online publisher of news or a special interest site it isn’t hard to make the case that the BBC unfairly distorts the market.
@Wadds But special interest sites are, by definition, special, and should be treated as exceptions. Surely you don’t consider it to be distorting the market when the BBC responds to a specific need that isn’t being met sufficiently elsewhere? I agree that there are two sides to this, but in what way would hobbling the BBC – preventing it from doing the same thing that other TV channels could do in terms of tie-in publications – make this better? That would weaken both the BBC and the general provision for that special interest sector.
You can say that the Beeb gains advantages because it can make tie-in TV programmes for its magazines, but you could also say that the BBC does the same as other TV channels in making tie-in magazines for some of its programmes… and as it’s primarily a TV broadcast organisation, the latter seems a little more relevant.
@JeFurry I disagree. TV listings, food and car mags are all crowded media sectors and it simply isn’t the case that the BBC is covering a need that isn’t being met elsewhere.
@Wadds But the large response to the magazines and sites quoted in the article does suggest that audiences *want* these sites and magazines, which implies that while there are alternatives, plenty of the audience find the BBC ones preferable. I agree they benefit from tie-in, can’t dispute that, but the causality isn’t necessarily as simple as “BBC invading other markets”… and the implied solution of cutting these peripheral avenues from the BBC to save money might in fact undermine parts of its core business too.
I’m not saying you’re definitely wrong, you understand… just that there is more to it than *just* the magazine side of things, and it’s difficult to separate two closely interlinked media.
[...] Web traffic to BBC consumer titles impressive but tough to defend … [...]
I don’t think people go to the Top Gear website particularly for the car stuff as a whole – if that were the case their numbers would be similar to a normal consumer motoring magazine.
It IS a different case because Top Gear is a cult in itself – people go for information on presenters, to read their columns and play the related games.
Folks, We buy Radio Times, we do not use website. We tried their competitors as well due lack of copies of Radio Times at our newsagent. Sorry I buy magazines because they suit me! Others do the same. Best of breed will always win, unless outrageously expensive, hence I do not buy Financial Times as it is too costly, but ‘make do’ with others. ‘Tie in’ is not important in Radio Times , it may be in Top Gear, but would the other car magazines exist if Top Gear was not on TV to generate interest?