Media Websites

New BBC TV channel sites

BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four now converted (May 2012)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
JA
Jamesypoo
VirginMediaPhil posted:
Well it's replaced the old link for 'TV Guide' on the channel pages.


According to Google's cache (don't know how long this will work for) it's the same link, just a bit more prominent now.
AN
andyface
Robert Williams posted:
andyface posted:
Where did you see this? As far as I know, there's been an effort to align the TV and iPlayer pages closer together, but I can't imagine the iPlayer homepage going anywhere. It would surely be very messy and disorganised without a dedicated homepage for iPlayer, and it is a key destination if you just want to find something to watch online, right now. The TV pages, granted, have improved at offering this, but they have to showcase upcoming programmes just as much. It will be interesting to see how the /tv hub will develop, though, but I think it would be a mistake to water down the iPlayer brand. Especially when you think of the growth of dedicated iPlayer content on different devices.

The question then is, what would be the different purposes of the TV homepage and the iPlayer homepage? I don't know whether they are to become one and the same, but if not I can't think how they would differ very much. Radio is coming out of iPlayer altogether (possibly to be accessed solely through Radio Player?) so that's no longer an issue. And the iPlayer links on the channel homepages now use /tv/ rather /iplayer/ in the URLs, so it does seem that, strangely, iPlayer brand is being sidelined somewhat, and it's unclear just how it will fit into the new TV product.

It's always been possible to by-pass the iPlayer website anyway when looking for a particular programme to watch or listen to, by going through /programmes, which I've always preferred to do since I've never much liked the design or layout of the iPlayer website, particularly the current incarnation. They don't really need schedule pages on both iPlayer and /programmes sites; perhaps just adding small images to the schedule pages in /programmes might jazz them up a bit. But then, what about the non-BBC schedules that appear on iPlayer?


There would inevitably be some overlap, but I do think there is room for both. The TV pages would focus on showcasing the best shows that are coming up and have just aired , whereas iPlayer obviously just focuses on recently aired programmes that are available to watch online. The execution would probably have to be quite inventive to differentiate it, though. I do think it would be a mistake to sideline the iPlayer brand.
FR
frank
The thing with iPlayer is it's a cross platform brand (Apps, Consoles, etc). People know what it is, and many are familiar with how it works. Any type of realignment will need to be very carefully thought out. I do think that repeating content on a website is not a great thing, so whichever way, it's a bit of a conundrum.
RW
Robert Williams Founding member
andyface posted:
There would inevitably be some overlap, but I do think there is room for both. The TV pages would focus on showcasing the best shows that are coming up and have just aired , whereas iPlayer obviously just focuses on recently aired programmes that are available to watch online. The execution would probably have to be quite inventive to differentiate it, though. I do think it would be a mistake to sideline the iPlayer brand.

I do agree with keeping the iPlayer brand, and it's obviously not going to disappear, but I do think a combined TV/iPlayer homepage would be simpler and can showcase both programmes that are coming up and ones that are available to view now - that's exactly what the new channel homepages are doing already, and I can imagine the homepage following a similar layout. I think it's safe to say there'll be some carousels involved, whatever happens!

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