Beyond Broadcast

The most important change facing the BBC in the coming decade will be the transition from broadcasting to on-demand as the way much, if not most, of our content will be consumed.

This will affect television more than radio, but radio will not be immune to this change. Programmes will be watched or listened to at a time chosen by the audience – not by us as broadcasters.

On-demand is the most important change because it will affect profoundly every aspect of the BBC. It provides audiences with far greater choice and novel forms of content. It affects the type of content we need to create and how we package and distribute it. It puts us head to head with new competitors like Google and Yahoo who are global, rich and already fit for the digital age.

But on-demand, while the most important, is not the only challenge we face in the fully digital world of 2015. Audiences will be offered ever richer interactivity on both the web and tv. In addition, we will see the full emergence of user-created content as a mainstream phenomenon. This has already started. Millions, especially the young,, are watching video made by people like themselves and posted on the internet and this is a big challenge to conventional broadcasters.

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The impact on broadcasting will be an earthquake compared with the mild tremors that marked the transition to multi-channel. We will need to change the way we work in a number of important ways. There is a lot of detail to be worked out but here are some of the most critical changes we believe are required.

• Improve our understanding of audiences and to use these insights to stimulate innovation and creative development.
• Acquire the rights that will enable us to provide a rich portfolio of on-demand services.
• Build the technical architecture to create pan-platform production and on-demand services.
• Nurture and develop our production talent and ensure people have a greater diversity of experience – crucially, interactive platforms including user-created content.

Ensure our content is findable