Making sense of the intersection between media, society and technology
The Internet is proving a bit of a goldmine for the BBC, at least according to the head of BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the Beeb.
Speaking in London this week, BBC Worldwide Chief Executive John Smith said he was initially hoping to make at least 10 percent of its total revenues from the Internet, but has now realized this target is too low.
We think we will be able to beat it. It has gone from one percent to nearly four percent in just 18 months. So already we are starting to see that probably we have under-egged the extent to which we will see more of our revenues coming from the Internet.
A key element of the commercial strategy is to monetise the 40 million international web users who visit the BBC.
Plans to put ads on the international versions of BBC websites were approved in October and they started appearing in early November.
Other media organisations will be watching the BBC closely to see if it succeeds in taping into the monetary value of international online audiences.
This blog is run by Professor Alfred Hermida, an award-winning online news pioneer, digital media scholar and journalism educator.
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links for 2007-12-03 « David Black
December 2nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm
[...] BBC upbeat on web revenue – Reportr.net “BBC Worldwide Chief Executive John Smith said he was initially hoping to make at least 10 percent of its total revenues from the Internet, but has now realized this target is too low.” (tags: internet business advertising revenue trends targets bbc) [...]