BBC News Interactive

According to posts on Digital Spy, BBC News Interactive starts tommorow (which makes sense as that is when BBC Online switches to BBCi).  Can anyone confirm this?

EDIT: It says that it will not only appear on BBC News 24, but also on BBC One and Two when news programmes are on.

(Edited by MillyMaster at 3:29 pm on Nov. 7, 2001)

I read that earlier - but will it be on Telewest?

I believe 'BBCi' will be the term for anything interactive. This will include the new N24 interactive service, BBC ONLINE and the interactive Walking with Beasts thing coming to Sky and cable soon.

I wonder whether BBC Text will become BBCi as well ?

It don't look that way, I think this is going to be Sky Digital only.

Marvellous! Another thing only on Sky!

I think people on here know my feeling towards only Sky things!

Yes and it's fine to get annoyed about it but not towards the BBC or any other broadcaster. It's not their fault cable provide a good but not as good as service, regarding technology.

Cheers, Asa

Yes, it will

I'm sure if cable and ITV digital were capable of the service on sky, then the BBC would do it.

I'm not annoyed towards the BBC. No, don't get me wrong! You know I like News 24. It's just a shame that Telewest promotes itself highly with their 'brilliant' (not a quote) digital tv service but they have hardly anything!

Seeing as the guy who is in charge of BBCi (or Online until tomorrow morning) used to be in a pretty senior position at Telewest before his move to auntie, don't be surprised if all this stuff shows up on cable in the not too distant future. There's (I think) a 'lite' version for ITV Digital being worked on...

Good good, the Beeb may not come up with the best names for their interactive services but in terms of content they beat practically every rival. The News interactive thing should be pretty good, and hopefully well designed. I'm hoping they'll have video feeds on too. Will be interesting to see how Sky react to this - they're relauching News Active pretty soon.

On a point raised earlier, why the BBC don't provide certain things to certain operators. I think it's the case that once the service - let's take digital text as an example - has been created the BBC _have to_ provide that service to that particular operator. BBC Text arrived so late on Sky because Sky hadn't bothered to do much work on interactive text and so obviously there wasn't a viable way for the BBC to put BBC Text on Sky Digital, not if the technology hadn't been developed by Sky themselves. Plus, Sky Digital is currently the only platform with an interactive news service that will be similar and style and content to the BBC's new thingummyjig. The BBC aren't going to spend a fortune on trying to sort out a service for ITV Digital only to serve a small audience in comparison to Sky, and Sky has the capability to do so much more. It's easier to start off with the full blown version and then scale it down to the platforms that can't cope with the full service.

(Edited by c@t at 8:45 pm on Nov. 6, 2001)

ITV Digital have had loads of interactive and text services tailored to individual programmes, they've done the Champions League, Interactive Brits, Classical Brits, Survivor, ITV Text + and the football service which operates on Saturdays.  

The majority of these have been produced by Carlton Interactive and have been very good.  

(Edited by square eyes at 8:56 pm on Nov. 6, 2001)