BBC’s Huggers outlines online and iPlayer plans

BBC Online chief Erik Huggers has outlined some details of the BBC’s plans to refocus its online activities as it seeks to cut costs by 25% and reduce the number of sites it operates from 400 to 200.

Characterising the shift as one “from building websites to managing products”, Huggers said activities would be organised into five content areas or portfolios supported by a common technical platform. News, sport and weather will remain the cornerstone of the BBC’s web offer, with the other four portfolios comprising children’s, knowledge and learning, radio and music (united in a single online package) and TV, including the iPlayer.

Of the latter, Huggers said he intended to bring all the disparate entry points for video consumption together into a coherent TV and BBC iPlayer package. The new portfolio will be interconnected with the other four product portfolios but will also send traffic to services outside the BBC through the metadata partnerships with ITV Player, 4oD, S4/Click, Demand Five and SeeSaw announced at the launch of the new BBC iPlayer beta version in May.