Deja View

There’s been much oxygen expended recently on the question of the future of the BBC.

And all of it seems to have missed the obvious. The £100m question.

What is the point of BBC Three?

The channel feels like a box-ticker. It’s designed to appeal to that audience that the BBC doesn’t cater to particularly well. And yet, it doesn’t do the job much better.

Ratings

Firstly, how many people watch it? Well, each week, around a third of people living in ‘Digital’ homes (those with Freeview, Sky etc.) see something on it. Which doesn’t sound too bad. BBC One, for comparison, is at 85%. But when you look at share (how much of the week’s television is made up of watching BBC Three) the numbers are less good.

Its weekly share is just 1.5%, lower than ITV2 and even ITV3.

Now, BBC Three is only on from 7pm each night, so perhaps this isn’t a fair comparison. But with the massive promotion the channel gets on BBC One and BBC Two, you’d expect it to beat ITV2 for the number of people it reaches it week. It doesn’t.

Quality

Is this because the programs are rubbish? Well, not particularly. The channel’s boosted by the amount of high-quality material like Doctor Who, EastEnders and Gavin and Stacey. Much of what they show is far superior in quality and appeal than what you get on other digital channels.

Repeats

So that leads us to the real reason it doesn’t do as well as it should.

It’s full of repeats.

I looked through the TV guide yesterday and was genuinely astonished at the number of repeats. Last night (Sunday) had one new programme, which was actually a retrospective of a previous series. Tonight has just one hour of ‘newness’ – “My 22 Stone Dad And Skinny Me”. Not exactly ground-breaking or original. Tomorrow’s schedule has another hour of new programmes. And Wednesday has precisely none.

Across my sample 40 hours of viewing, the channel is showing 37 hours of repeats.

Believe it or not, the BBC is trying to extend the channel’s hours.

Now, let’s be clear. I’m not against the BBC having a repeats channel. It might be quite a good idea. But why market BBC Three to the one age-group least likely to be tempted by repeats? Why claim the channel is a test-bed for programmes before they hit other channels when they’re not making anything original (Gavin & Stacey and Little Britain being extremely rare exceptions)?

And why suck up around £90m a year when 90% of your output has, largely, already been paid for?

The BBC ought to admit that BBC Three is a pointless luxury it can’t afford right now.

Christopher Doidge : 19 Jan 2009 10:11 |  Tags: BBC BBC Three Media Television |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem