Earlier this month, the BBC got the go-ahead to put advertising on the BBCNews.com. This means that readers from outside the UK should start seeing the ads from November.
During my time at the BBC News website, international readers would often remark that one of the things they liked about the site was the lack of ads.
The BBC is going to often an option to avoid the ads. Director of Global News at the BBC, Richard Sambrook, explains:
We do intend to offer a subscription service for international users in the next year. However this will sit alongside the ad-supported service – so subscription-paying users will not see ads if they are logged in, but will do if not logged in. Most news organisations who have adopted a subscription only service are closing them in favour of ads. We would like to offer both, but have to ensure the business plan is robust and we have to undertake some further technical work before we can offer this.
As Sambrook says, other news organisations have moved away from the subscription model.
So why is the BBC going down this route? After all, if people want to avoid ads on websites, all they need to do is install the free Firefox plugin, Adblock Plus.
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I have no problem on Ads on the site, but it seems superfluous to use an ad and a subscription-supported model.
I like the clean feel of the BBC site and their different view of the world. As an international visitor, may have less of a reason to visit if it is ad-intensive.
Execution is key.