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Saturday, June 16, 2012

Closing the News Multiscreen on Red Button

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Interactive TV, in the form of the BBC's Red Button services, has been with us now for over a decade.

The BBC periodically reviews all its services, looking at whether they still deliver value for money, whether they are available on platforms our users can easily access and whether they continue to meet the changing needs of audiences.

For the Red Button video Multiscreen service in particular we also have to consider how it fits with the development of next-generation interactive TV (for example our new BBC News service on Connected TVs) as this starts to become more widely available.

A recent review, undertaken as part of a BBC strategy and consultation process called Delivering Quality First recommended changes to our existing Red Button services, specifically "a phased reduction of broadcast Red Button services, reducing the number of interactive streams to one across all platforms and exploring the longer-term transition to IPTV technologies".

As a result, we will soon be closing the remaining BBC News Multiscreen video service. The date scheduled for this is 20 June. Currently the service is still available to Sky and Virgin Media consumers - a Freeview version closed in October 2009.

A comprehensive News, Sport and Weather text service will continue to be offered via the Red Button, and other BBC News content will of course still be available on the Sky and Virgin Platforms, for example on the BBC News channel. And the BBC's News, Sport and Weather video content is obviously also available online.

Removing a service is always a difficult decision, but at the same time we are investing resources in brand new internet-connected TV services which we believe will allow us to offer far more than we've been able to before via Red Button, with more choice, more content, delivered in more appealing formats. More on these new developments before too long.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.


View the original article here

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