The BBC, facing pressure to cut costs, is considering moving the network’s all-news channel to the web, only. The Guardian reports no final decision has been made, but BBC director of news James Harding said “there is a shift from rolling news channels on TV to streaming news on mobile.”
Recently, the BBC Trust approved the BBC’s plans to scrap the BBC3 TV channel and make it online-only in an effort to save the corporation £30 million a year.
Harding said the BBC News channel reaches 8.6 million viewers a week, but like cable news in the U.S., the trend has been down:
“What do these figures say to us? They tell us that just as the BBC redefined the news for Britain – first on radio, then on television and more recently online – we must now consider very carefully the prospect that we may need to do so again.”
“Technology, once again, is transforming the way the BBC tells stories, the way everyone gets stories. In particular, it is changing the way people get breaking news. There is a shift from rolling news channels on TV to streaming news on mobile … This represents an opportunity as exciting as the launch of 24-hour news in 1997 and will force the BBC to think how best we reach people.”