Breaking the Mould and other programmes on BBC Three at the moment

We’ve been busy at BBC Three. The Race season ended last week and provoked debate; we announced Class - our brand new Doctor Who spin off; PJDN is coming back in 2016, and so isMurder In Successville. We had coverage of League of Legends streamed live from Wembley last week and yesterday new show The Fearstarted. 

Also starting last night was our Breaking The Mould season - a collection of powerful documentaries challenging our perceptions of gender. The season kicked off with Saving The Cybersex Girlsand is followed by 12 films including Professor Green’s doc on male suicide and Charli XCX’s doc about feminism in the music industry.

The season also includes Is This Rape? Sex On Trial, and, broadcast last night, How Gay Is Pakistan?Powerful films that are exactly the kind of challenging, thought provoking films BBC Three should make, has made, and will always make.

Sexual assault is a delicate subject but that should not stop us from covering it. The show will challenge what young people know about sexual assault by inviting them to decide if what they see acted out on screen is rape. Some may argue this is an inappropriate way to cover sexual assault but the fact remains it is a very real issue for young people and we will present it in a way young people can engage with and relate to. We will treat the subject with sensitivity but not gloss over the issues it raises.

The same is true of How Gay Is Pakistan? The film may provoke debate because of its subject - it's certainly a powerful film about a young, gay, Pakistani born Brit, meeting people in Pakistan who are LGBT. He discovers a country where homosexuality is outlawed but practised in private, despite constant fears of persecution. It will show a side of the country that many young people in the UK are not familiar with.

Both films have challenging language and scenes that might offend some but if we are to reflect life we need to show real life - the good and the bad. I think it’s important we cover issues that affect young people in a distinctive way and present subjects honestly.

With all our films, including recent titles Is Britain Racist?andKKK: The Fight for White Supremacy, we take great care before deciding to include footage some people may find offensive. Racist chanting, opinions about the holocaust or the abusive side of activists are vital to the stories we tell. Decisions are not taken lightly but it would be unfair to our audience if we excluded something because it might offend someone.

Young people witness extreme opinions in real life and online. To exclude such content would lose us the trust of our audience. Yes, we risk causing offence and challenging the beliefs of some but we make no apology for this because we believe our audience deserve to see the facts and make their own judgements.

BBC Three is more than making you think and challenging your perceptions. We want to entertain you and make you laugh as well. Last week, we announced the new Doctor Who spin off Class. Arriving in 2016 it's Patrick Ness' first piece for TV and is targeted at a young adult audience.

Before Class arrives we have new drama Thirteen to look forward to. It is written by talented young writer Marnie Dickens and it will be on BBC Three in early 2016. We also have Murdered By My Father, from the BAFTA winning team behind Murdered By My Boyfriend, and Murder Games, a drama documentary about the murder of Breck Bednar before Class arrives.

The Fear is our new show featuring homemade horror like 3am and The Butcher Man that will find the next big British horror filmmaker. The finalists will be judged by Blair Witch director Eduardo Sanchez and the winner then given backing to go on make their own horror film. It’s been described by The Times as “Imagine Bake Off with viscous blood & crushed bone".

Last week we signed KuruptFM’s - Grindah, Beats and Steves – for two new series of PJDN and this week we announced DI Sleet is coming back with a new series of Murder In Successville. 

And there’s more. We had another first for BBC Three last week - live coverage of League of Legends from Wembley. If you’re unfamiliar with LOL and eSports this should help and here’s presenter Julia Hardy going behind the scenes at the Arena. It’s exactly the kind of innovation BBC Three will push. It’s a new direction for us and an example of how we are collaborating with other areas of the BBC. In this case BBC Sport who produced our coverage and Dev from Radio 1 who was presenting.

I think all this, along with new British comedy Together, Top Coppers, Fried, Asian Provocateur demonstrate how new British comedy and new British talent will always be part of BBC Three and show how BBC Three will always offer new talent the very best opportunities.

I'm staggered how some people say we're running a channel down when all this is happening right now! And that’s before our new content team, led by Max Gogarty, ex head of Development at Vice, gets fully up and running. Watch this space. 

I was at the Edinburgh TV festival a few weeks back, it's where the TV industry gather to shop their wares and tell everyone how great we are. Lots of interesting sessions including one with our very own Stacey Dooley - alongside Ben Anderson from Vice, Nick Broomfield and Ross Kemp - talking about her experiences making Dangerous Docs and a keynote from Matt Brittin, Google's VP in EMEA. Matt said the industry should see BBC Three's move as a bold one considering how young audiences have changed. Matt, we'll definitely be "fishing where the fish are".

I was interviewed by Broadcast Magazine's Jake Kanter. During the session we talked about why we should reinvent online and announced the gender and race seasons. We also announced some of the new form content we have made. I know you guys want to know more about this but we have reasons to keep it under our hats for now. Again, watch this space.

I won’t go into the reasons again why we want to reinvent online - you can read my previous blog posts and this and this for that - but I hope I demonstrated what we’re doing through what we do best, the things we make. Content that no matter how it will be made available, will be available to all, and be both thought provoking and entertaining. I love your passion for BBC Three and the linear channel but the world has changed and we need to change.

These are not my stats. They are from Ofcom’s 2015 Communications market report and Thinkbox, the organisation that represents advertising on TV. 

• Over 50% of video viewing by 16-24s is not live TV
• Over 75% of 16-24s media time is not live TV
• The time 16-24s spend online has almost tripled since 2005 to over 28hrs a week
• 56% of homes have a TV connected to the internet
• 66% of homes have a DVR like Tivo or Sky+
• 80% of homes have fixed broadband. 83% can get superfast broadband
• 90% of homes have 4G reception
• 90% of 16-24s have a smartphone
• 59% said they'd miss their smartphone most, 17% chose TV
• 61% of 16-24s say they're hooked on their smartphone with half checking their phones within 5 minutes of waking and less than 5 minutes before going to sleep
• 54% of all adults own a tablet, up from 44% in 2014
• 93% of 16-24s have a social media account, with 41% ‘hooked on’. It’s 6% for over-55s
• 72% of all people watch short-form with 32% saying they watched daily or at least weekly
• 47% of all internet users use YouTube as a source when looking for information rising to 57% of 16 to 24 year-olds
• Among children, 16-24s and 35-44s daily viewing has fallen every year since 2010
• Decline in TV viewing is more pronounced among under-45s, with the greatest drop among children aged 4-15 (-12.4%), followed by the 25-34 group (-8.8%) and 35-44s (-8.0%). Viewing among the over-65s fell the least; by 0.3%
• Online TV revenue increased by 38% in 2014 to £793m, with income from online TV subscriptions increasing by 53%

I could go on and on with the stats but the fact remains, ten years ago BBC Three existed and the Nokia 1110 was the world’s bestselling phone. In 2015 we have Netflix, YouTube, BBC iPlayer, the smartphone, 4G, broadband, Facebook, Snapchat and the PS4. Sky+ was just a baby 10 years ago. The world has changed and we could bury our heads in the sand and ignore these hugely disruptive changes or we can embrace them and give young people what they want, when they want it, how they want it.

We have lots planned over the coming weeks so please subscribe to @BBCThree on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Snapchat and like us on Facebook to be across the latest. We want you to get involved.

Damian Kavanagh is Digital Controller, BBC Three