BBC Online - Putting Quality First

A blog post has just been published on the About The BBC blog from Erik Huggers, (Director of BBC Future Media & Technology) called "BBC Online - Putting Quality First".

Here's an extract:

...I'm proud of what this organisation has created online. One of the first "traditional" media companies to embrace the web, I continue to be impressed with its ability to innovate and BBC websites such as News, Sport, iPlayer and others are highly valued by our audiences.

But the service as a whole has sprawled. In striving to stay relevant, we have sometimes not been clear enough about our limits and boundaries. We're getting a better sense of what BBC Online should be for and I believe it's possible to make the service better with less.

Many of you will be familiar with the headlines of the Strategy Review. By 2013, we propose a BBC Online that:

• Does fewer things better, against the BBC's five editorial priorities
• Has half the number of top-level directories (i.e. /sitename) down from the 400 we have today to 200
• Costs 25% less (i.e. the BBC Online Service Licence for 2010/11 is £135m - we intend to cut spend to £100m)
• Will send double the traffic we currently do to other websites, helping the broader UK digital economy

While it's natural that people focus on the 25% and which directories will go it's worth noting that this strategy is not called "Retreating From the Web" or "Cutting BBC Online". This is because the web is an important part of our future.

Read more and comment at About The BBC blog