As TV Today told you back in January, the BBC has now launched two new channels on video sharing site YouTube, with a third due to follow later in the year.
The BBC channel seems to contain clips and background information on current shows, while the BBC Worldwide channel has some less recent, but still newish shows, with clips from Top Gear, The Catherine Tate Show, The Mighty Boosh and more.
It looks as though each of these channels will have links to, and receive links from, the BBC’s two forthcoming iPlayer implementations (the ‘standard’ one, and a commercial version operated by BBC Worldwide).
Broadcast reports that a third channel, linked to BBC World, the BBC’s international commercial television channel, will launch “in the next couple of months” with a collection of news and current affairs clips.
From the Broadcast report:
Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of new media and technology, said he hoped the partnership would help the BBC reach younger, “underserved” audiences. “YouTube has these viewers in the bucket load and it may encourage them to start watching BBC TV channels such as BBC1,” he said.
BBC director general Mark Thompson said: “The partnership provides both a creative outlet for a range of short-form content from BBC programme makers and the opportunity to learn about new forms of audience behaviour.”
Update: via paidContent.org, BBC worldwide clips will be funded with ads embedded in the clip video streams. Also, Highfield says that the Beeb won’t be pursuing any takedown policy for existing YouTube uploads, “although it would reserve the right to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people’s copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC’s brand.”
