BBC to build web page for every TV show, says Jana Bennett

Leigh Holmwood
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 June 2008 13.53 BST

The BBC is to create a web page for every episode of every television programme it has ever produced as part of a huge online archive that will span nearly 80 years.

BBC executives hope the move will give its programmes a longer shelf life as well as plugging gaps on its website.

Executives have previously privately conceded that there is often more information about BBC programmes on third-party websites than on bbc.co.uk.

The project has already seen the corporation create more than 160,000 individual web pages over the past three months, with developers looking to create content for shows going back to the 1930s.

"Eventually we will add our programme back catalogue to produce pages for programming stretching back over nearly 80 years - featuring all the information we have on the richest TV and radio archive in the world," the BBC director of vision, Jana Bennett, told the Banff television festival in Canada late yesterday.

"The BBC is committed to releasing the public value in that archive and these pages are going to play a central role in allowing us to do that."

The BBC broadcast the first experimental television programme from Broadcasting House in London in August 1932, with regular shows following soon after.

Bennett said the new web pages would include basic data about each show as well as where it could be seen, either on television, the iPlayer broadband catch-up service or elsewhere on the internet, as well as video or audio clips.

"These permanent pages will always direct the audience to the programme - wherever it may be on the web - first in iPlayer, then elsewhere on bbc.co.uk, or on iTunes, or on any number of other on demand services including Kangaroo [the commercial service being developed by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4]," she added.

"Each page and clip will be promotional for that programme in perpetuity. They will offer the possibility of hits that go on and on - or are rediscovered when the time is right."

Meanwhile, Bennett also gave the clearest hint yet that BBC3 hit comedy Gavin and Stacey would transfer to BBC1 for its Christmas special.

"We removed it from the glare of ratings - playing the first two series on BBC3 - and it found a devoted following - averaging 1.6 million on this digital channel," she said. "This year, I'd love to see the Christmas special play out on BBC1."

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