You can’t move these days for scenes of ITV patting itself on the
back for finally getting to grips with its effluent past - so much so,
in fact, that the BBC’s designs on the future of multi-channel
television have largely gone unnoticed.
The debut last weekend of three new channels bearing the BBC stamp of
quality sadly, but predictably, failed to raise the industry’s pulse
rate. Uninspiring, low-key advertising hasn’t helped, but UKTV looks far
from being the embarrassing damp squib of last year’s Granada Sky
Broadcasting effort.
A joint venture between the BBC and Flextech, UKTV is the BBC’s entree
into the multi-channel TV market of the next century and a toe-in-the
water of next year’s digital broadcasting revolution. The first three
channels, UK Arena, UK Horizons and UK Style, will sit alongside the
existing UK Gold offer to slug it out for advertisers’ money in the
commercial TV market. And the ensuing revenues and expertise will be
ploughed back into making BBC 1 and BBC 2 more competitive against ITV
for audiences.
Dick Emery, the chief operating officer of BBC Worldwide, the commercial
arm of the BBC, already knows a thing or two about the competition. A
veteran ITV salesman and the network’s first marketing director, Emery
is well aware of the corporation’s need to tackle the commercial
realities of TV in the 21st century.
’The BBC had largely missed out on multi-channel television in the
analogue world,’ Emery explains. ’We were determined to find a way of
taking part in the multi-channel digital world.’ And the motivation is
purely commercial.
’BBC Worldwide has been charged with increasing its commercial
contribution to the BBC to help with the funding gap which will occur
over the next ten years.’
For Emery, the attractions of the UKTV initiative include the revenue
that can be generated from basic pay services and from exploiting the
BBC catalogue, selling programmes to those services and learning about
how the viewer will react in a TV scenario of virtually unlimited
choice.
Flextech, he says, is an ideal partner because of its international
connections (it’s part of the US cable giant, TCI) and is already
operating channels in the UK such as Bravo, Trouble and Living. ’It is a
good fit. Flextech needed more content to strengthen its business and
with its financial clout and basic distribution expertise knitted
together with our programming expertise, it has worked very well.’
Yet the BBC’s commercial television ventures to date (BBC Prime in
Europe, BBC World and UKTV in Australia) have hardly been jaw-dropping
achievements. ’We haven’t got anything which is a roaring success,’
Emery admits. ’But the real thing about the UK is that we have so much
content made for this market which wasn’t getting a second airing and we
really needed to find an additional outlet for that programming.’
He adds: ’But we have learned outside of the UK that in multi-channel
markets, cable and satellite channels are very different from
terrestrial and I think to start off with, we tended to see it as an
extension of existing business. The danger is that if we don’t do it
somebody else will and it would be very difficult for us to enter it at
a later stage. It’s important that we’re there as soon as we can be and
learn as much as we can as soon as we can.’
And Emery insists that it’s all good news for audiences and
advertisers.
’At the moment, multi-channel television means some not very attractive
basic channels, but you have to buy those in order to get through to the
specialist services which people are then paying significant amounts of
money for,’ he points out. ’So having a UKTV vehicle is a real chance to
have some sensible multi-channel services which can attract sizeable
audiences. That’s going to take time and increased penetration, but
there’s a real opportunity for enhanced commercial impacts as a
result.’
And in this determined spirit of commercialism, the BBC is honing its
strategy of translating brands from one medium to another. ’Our next
phase is very much about brand building. We’re looking to have much
greater marketing input with BBC production right at the start to ensure
that we don’t just create a product but we create a brand, and we’ll
look at extending those brands across as many media as possible on a
global basis.’
For John Hardie, starting his new job as marketing and commercial
director of ITV this week, Mr Emery must provide some sober food for
thought.
The Emery file
1968 Ulster TV, sales assistant
1972 Anglia TV, sales controller
1982 TVS, sales controller
1983 Central TV, sales director
1989 TSMS, founder
1991 ITN, commercial director
1993 ITV, director of market strategy
1994 BBC Worldwide, chief operating officer
