BBC needs to consider resources to hit digital targets
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Editor
| 14 December 2022
The UK’s National Audit Office (NAO) has warned BBC that it needs to now consider whether it has sufficient resources to deliver its vision announced in May 2022 to focus resources towards content that appeals to audiences who choose to view it both live online.
BBC Building 27May2022
The BBC’s plan amounted to a blueprint to build what the corporation called a digital-first public service media organisation and manage the future demands of the Licence Fee settlement. Yet while the BBC said that the move would see a number of changes such as the creation of a single, 24-hour TV news channel serving UK and international audiences, BBC News, offering greater amounts of shared content, it would also stop broadcasting smaller linear channels, such as children’s channel CBBC and art and cultural focused BBC Four.

The May plans were reinforced a few days ago in a speech by BBC Director-General Tim Davie in which he outlined how the BBC would be leading the UK into digital and setting out the need for the BBC to plan for a digital-only future.

Yet in its assessment of the BBC’s ambitions, the NAO emphasised that the BBC had less funding available to develop digital products than most other media organisations, many of which are digital only. It noted that is overall spend in this area had actually fallen from £109 million in 2018-19 to £98 million in 2021-22 in real terms. By comparison, the NAO added that Netflix had spent £1.7 billion on technology and development in 2021. As a result, the NAO remarked, the BBC's products have been developed at a slower pace, are less technologically sophisticated, and it has not always been able to take advantage of technological innovations.

The NAO found that the BBC's digital leadership needs to evolve to deliver its strategy more effectively and accelerate its digital growth. The BBC recognises that it needs to make continued improvements in this area and is improving the information on its digital activity that is received by its executive committee. The NAO found limited evidence that the committee is providing sufficient challenge in return.

Overall, the NAO recommends that, in the light of its 2022 licence fee settlement, the BBC should develop a realistic, more detailed digital investment plan to support its digital-first ambitions. Moreover, that it should develop its digital leadership and governance structures to ensure sufficient challenge to the corporation in terms of digital costs, opportunities and the long-term implications of decisions.

It also observed that the BBC should also set out how it plans to develop its personalisation strategy - an important element of the BBC's future plans, with a target for 72% of digital product views coming from signed-in users by 2023 - including how it will manage the increased data risks.

"The BBC faces a number of challenges in developing its digital offering, and its products are performing well compared to other, better-funded, media organisations,” said Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO. “Stronger digital leadership structures in particular will enable the BBC to make the improvements it needs to its approach, if it is to maintain this success in a fast moving, global media market."