Service review BBC Red Button November 2010 Getting the best out of the BBC for licence fee payers BBC Red Button service review Contents Contents 1 Introduction 1 Background 1 Scope & methodology 1 Summary of findings 4 Key findings and actions 4 Main Report 11 Current performance 11 BBC Red Button’s remit 11 BBC Red Button’s core strategic purposes and proposition 11 Service overview 12 Reach 15 Quality 25 Impact 31 Value for money 37 BBC Red Button’s future 45 BBC Red Button service review Introduction Background 1. The BBC Trust is the governing body of the BBC and it is our responsibility to get the best out of the BBC for licence fee payers. As part of this commitment, we carry out an in- depth review of each of the BBC’s services at least once every five years. In this report we review the BBC Red Button service. 2. BBC Red Button (known as BBCi until 2008) is the BBC’s interactive television service. It provides viewers with a range of video, audio, pictures, text and applications accessible through their digital televisions and it replaces Ceefax (the BBC’s analogue teletext service) as digital switchover takes place. 3. The Trust sets out what it expects from each of the BBC’s services in a published service licence. Our review had three main aims: first, to assess how well BBC Red Button is performing against the commitments set out in its service licence; second, to consider the service’s future direction; and, third, to determine whether amendments to the existing service licence are necessary. 4. Our review has considered evidence from several sources, taking in opinions and evidence from licence fee payers, BBC management and the wider industry. In addition to our audience research, performance monitoring and financial analysis, a public consultation in late 2009 produced over 5,600 responses. This has given us a clear understanding of BBC Red Button’s strengths and weaknesses. Scope & methodology Review scope 5. The scope of our review was set out in our terms of reference, which were published in September 2009. The main questions which the review set out to answer were: How well is the BBC Red Button service performing in terms of reach, quality, delivery of the public purposes and value for money and against the terms of its service licence (offering continuously updated news, information, education and entertainment to digital TV viewers)? Should the BBC Red Button service change in any way to take account of changing audience needs or technologies? This may include the move towards digital switch- over, the growth of home internet access or the future potential of internet protocol television (IPTV).i Methodology 6. This review was carried out for the Trust by its independent advisers in the Trust Unit under the direction of the review’s lead Trustee, Diane Coyle. We gathered evidence from a wide range of sources, as summarised below. i BBC Trust review of BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four and the BBC Red Button / Terms of reference – 24 September 2009 November 2010 1 BBC Red Button service review - Consultation 7. We used the service licence to develop a set of questions for public consultation. The consultation ran for 12 weeks from September to December 2009, and encouraged participation through an online questionnaire and by post through a printed leaflet. We received over 5,600 responses from licence fee payers and interested organisations as a result. 8. We also received responses from the Trust’s Audience Councils in England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. These Councils are chaired by the BBC Trust member for that nation and have links with various local communities in their area. The Councils organise events and activities to advise the Trust on how well the BBC is serving licence fee payers in different parts of the UK. 9. In addition we consulted with the BBC Executive Board and received responses from interest groups such as the Voice of the Listener & Viewer and Mediawatch-UK. - Performance data analysis 10. We analysed performance data using the BBC’s RQIV performance framework, which considers four drivers of public value: reach, quality, impact and value for money. This framework is set out in Figure 1. Figure 1: The BBC's RQIV performance framework Reach: The extent to which BBC services are used by the audience. In this report, unless otherwise stated, the reach of interactive services is expressed as the number of people who claim to have used a particular service within the last week, as measured by the Nunwood New Media Tracker. Quality: Quality is often measured in terms of audience perception. The BBC measures the content characteristics set out in the Agreement: ‘high quality’, ‘original’, ‘challenging’, ‘innovative’ and ‘engaging’. Impact: The extent to which BBC content creates public value by delivering the BBC’s public purposes. The purposes are set out in the BBC’s Royal Charter and can be summarised as follows: · Citizenship – sustaining citizenship and civil society · Education – promoting education and learning · Creativity – stimulating creativity and cultural excellence · Nations & regions – representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities · Global – bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK · Digital – helping to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services. Value for Money: A consideration of performance (reach, quality and impact) alongside cost to provide a perspective on cost effectiveness. Source: BBC Trust 11. We carried out our performance analysis using the following evidence sources: · audience data on usage and appreciation of interactive TV services from the Nunwood New Media Tracker, based on regular monthly surveys of around 1,900 people across the UK. This is the BBC’s primary data source for BBC Red Button performance, since moving from a TNS survey in 2008 November 2010 2 BBC Red Button service review · BARB data for BBC Red Button video services. BARB is the industry standard TV measurement body, which provides TV viewing data based on a panel of around 5,000 homes. During the period of this review, BARB could only capture data on the video content provided by BBC Red Button. The digital text part of the service could not be measured through BARB, due to the inherent limitations of the system. This data is therefore most useful in measuring the audiences for specific event TV output and additional linear viewing provided by BBC Red Button, whereas overall reach is better measured by the Nunwood survey · regular BBC audience surveys which measure perceptions of content from the BBC and other providers · financial data taken from the BBC’s Annual Report and management accounting system. - Bespoke audience research 12. In addition to the evidence sources cited above, the Trust also carried out a bespoke piece of audience research on BBC Red Button. We commissioned Kantar Media to carry out a representative survey of BBC Red Button users. This primarily sought to establish how well the service is seen to be delivering the BBC’s public purposes. Kantar spoke to about 650 members of the public, interviewing some online and some face to face, between November and December 2009. 13. Further information about the Trust’s approach to service reviews can be found on the Trust website at www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust. November 2010 3 BBC Red Button service review Summary of findings Conclusion BBC Red Button is a very widely used service, providing access to interactive television content for a large and diverse group of users. It has a substantial cost however, particularly as a result of its high distribution costs, and appreciation of the service is moderate rather than high. BBC Red Button should continue to focus on the things it does well and which its audience uses the most: the provision of news and information through digital text, and additional coverage of major live events. It should seek to reduce its broadcast content costs where possible by increasing the focus of the service on these areas, and we also expect it to reduce its distribution costs by providing a more consistent level of service across different digital TV platforms. It may be able to play a useful part in the development of IPTV, though it is too early to know exactly what this contribution will be. In the short term, costs for the re-versioning of BBC content for IPTV will be captured within the BBC Red Button service licence budget. There will be no increase in BBC Red Button’s service licence budget to cover IPTV activity. The Trust will monitor the development of the BBC’s IPTV activities and BBC Red Button’s role in this context, particularly with regard to the allocation of IPTV costs, will be re-assessed at the time of the next BBC Trust review of BBC Online, due in 2012. Key findings and actions BBC Red Button is a very widely used service 14. BBC Red Button has high reach relative to other BBC services and interactive TV services from other broadcasters. It is used by nearly 12 million people every week, making it the most used interactive TV service in the UK. Its users represent a broad cross-section of the population, and every week there are 5 million people who are reached by BBC Red Button but not by BBC Online. 15. Although overall reach is high, a large number of BBC Red Button programmes achieve very low reach. These are often minority sports broadcast to fulfil specific objectives as part of the BBC Sport strategy. It is important that these are monitored to ensure that they are providing value to viewers and fulfilling their stated objectives.