Newsbrief

Might be quite good really
no mention of whether it's a weekly/daily/monthly

It's an absolutely genius idea.

Commercial rivals will despair but it serves three purposes for the BBC:

1) Expands the brand of BBC News- got to be careful though with the type of advertising they let into it.

2) Allows their correspondents who have been prevented from writing newspaper columns post-Hutton to earn additional income from the commercial sector whilst effectively staying in-house.

3) It'll probably have a strong international feel (going up against Newsweek etc.) and therefore allows the international correspondents to help pay for their remote postings. This could be a very good deal for the licence fee payer- international magazine readers funding the placement of international correspondents that we see filing reports for News 24, Newsnight etc.

If it features columns by Marr, Paxman etc. plus investigative journalism, I think it could also be a cracking read.

Which is exactly why I am dead against this.

Again, we're hearing this about the BBC News "brand". Why does it need extending? It's a service that shouldn't need any form of advertising, everyone towards whom it is aimed is aware of its presence.

Excuse my lack of knowledge on this area but what is currently stopping them, any why would and should this magazine make a difference?

The BBC already has more than enough money thrown at it to afford this.

Sorry to pick your post to pieces a bit there, just wanted to make a few points from the perspective of someone who isn't in love with the BBC I would rather the BBC stuck to what it is there to do, ie. licence fee-funded TV and radio, than try to muscle in on markets that are already catered for and where the competitors will potentially suffer.

how can you be dead against a magazine when you have very little idea of what the content will be and how closely it resembles existing titles?



weren't they prevented from writing in newspapers after kilroy expressed some very un-bbc views. writing in a bbc magazine, which shares bbc news' editorial policies would remove the danger of correspondents voicing any opinions which would be contrary to bbc ed pol.

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the bbc is duty bound to supplement the money it recieves rom the licence fee by exploiting assets it already has. producing this magazine is simply extending the milage it gets out of the newsgathering operations that licence fee payers have already invested in. no doubt the bbc's commercial policy dept have assessed whether it is likely to have an adverse affect on competitors.

Sorrry, am I missing something here?

Why launch a magazine and spend millions on publication, distribution, design, managers, editorial staff, etc. when you have a hugely respected international website that can do everything a magazine can do and more.

I really cannot see it as being a challenger to the Economist (challenging Newsweek is not really very tricky, if we're being honest) or any other significant weekly news publication. It is also tedious to see the BBC encroach on yet another commercial market - albeit under the guise of their commercial arm itself. Unlike History Magazine, or Antiques, or Gardener's World Magazine, etc. the news magazine market is very well catered for, and readers tend to have long standing devotions to a particular publication. The BBC is supposed to bolster markets that don't enjoy this sort of environment, and instead it lumbers into one that does.

Another problem they are going to face, as is illustrated when TV hacks write articles for News Online, is that they are not born writers. That's why they are on TV. You're not going to find the sharpness of an Economist writer, the wit of Private Eye, the in-depth work in Prospect, or the thorough and specialist knowledge you get from Roll Call/House Magazine, and the like.

Presumably because the website currently generates zero income.

Future adverts for international surfers will generate some income, but as I said above, this provides an excellent opportunity to make a healthy return for the BBC licence fee payer using existing BBC resources.

If they know what they're doing this will be a global magazine, on newsstands from London to New York to Baghdad to Moscow to Beijing to Tokyo. Very much unlike Gardener's world or the other magazines you highlighted.

And as you say, readers of the Economist etc. are quite loyal and unlikely to switch, so the impact on the commercial market is quite limited. Further, the ability for BBC news journalists to write opinionated pieces is highly limited, and therefore the magazine is likely to be a fairly straight down the line news magazine. Unlike many of its competitors.

I think it's a great idea personally, and if it's a global success there's the potential for massive benefits for all UK licence fee payers.

I think it's a good idea for two reasons...

1) It'll enhance the BBCs reputation across the world
2) It'll generate income

Jeremy Clarkson writes a newspaper column for the times.

Yes I think the order only restricts BBC news journalists, mainly because of Gilligan's idiotic piece in the ?Sunday Mail over the "sexed up" dossier.