View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Archive content
August 28, 2003updated 22 Nov 2022 1:20pm

Why rivals want BBCi to be a victim of its own success

By Press Gazette

Back in the Nineties, when the term “internet profit” was not thought to be an oxymoron, a senior BBC executive addressed a new media conference. In the audience were a number of ponytailed US web whizkids, many of them called Steve, still revelling in the fact that they were suddenly darlings of the business world.

What, they were fascinated to know, was the BBC’s business model in setting up its online offering. The corporation’s man looked perplexed.

“Actually,” he said, “they just told me to go away and make the best news website that I possibly could.” Business models didn’t seem to come into it. The Steves shook their heads in amazement and went away to squander some more of their venture capitalists’ money.

Meanwhile, BBC Online, as it then was, did just what it had been asked and created a news site that would become the envy of its commercial rivals.

Fast forward a few years and the BBC’s approach is under somewhat closer scrutiny. While the Steves are back serving behind the McDonald’s counter, former Trinity Mirror chief executive Philip Graf has been asked to conduct a review into the corporation’s online operation. Not a moment too soon, its rivals say.

They believe that their own efforts to turn a profit have always foundered on the rock of BBCi’s gigantic resources, which underwrite a comprehensive news service that’s free to anybody with an internet connection.

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

How, they ask, can Guardian Unlimited, say, or even the Financial Times, charge for their mainstream news reports when the corporation’s mighty news machine rumbles on? Graf will have a complicated task on his hands, sorting out just how the £110m or so that the BBC spends on the net (£20m of it on news) is distorting the market. More than one third of its news users, for instance, do not visit any other news site.

The BBC has already pre-empted the review, commissioning KPMG to do its own research, which shows that up to two million people would not be web users anyway – and therefore not spending time, and potentially money on other websites – if it wasn’t for the BBC.

And new media boss Ashleigh Highfield had his own message for commercial players wanting to charge for news. His advice to them, given to The Independent, was stark: “Give up and move on”.

They’ll be hoping Graf offers a few more crumbs of comfort than that.

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network