BBC Three

They're not proposing closing BBC3 though to save costs on the transmission stream - they fully intend to keep that. BBC1+1 is just filling it because it's cheap rather than necessary. However if they really want a limited hours BBC1+1 but also ended up wanting to keep BBC3 on TV could taking BBC3 HD only be an option?

The irony of all this is there is a little watched 24/7 stream where the BBC already provide a far superior service online, but sadly BBC Parliament would never be sacrificed, even though it could probably bring in a few million quid a year if the stream was leased to the commercial sector.

Closing one 'transmission stream' doesn't actually save any money as it's multiplexed with the others. It's just a few Mb of data.

The only financial advantage would be, as brekkie says, to sell off the bandwidth to someone. However I suspect selling off space on the BBC's multiplex would be controversial no matter what channel it replaced

Moving it online could well cost more: http://media.info/television/opinion/bbc-three-going-online-only-doesnt-save-money

It isn't without precident though - two streams on the old 2nd BBC Mux were used by Sky Sports when the red button service was pulled.

And don't the BBC own the HD MUX?

Or was that only ever leased to them back in the "BBC B" days?

The BBC have the licence for the PSB3 HD Mux I believe. They certainly handle (though Atos) the coding and statmuxing for the channels on it, including ITVHD, C4HD etc.

The main savings by closing the BBC Three linear channel will be a massive cut in the commissioning budget. Put simply, they will spend less as they will buy/make fewer programmes as they won't have a 7 day a week linear schedule to fill. As others have said, we expect BBC Three branded long-form content to be available on-demand i.e. via iPlayer. There will also be short-form content for Facebook, YouTube etc.

This is the main saving - a massive cut in the commissioning budget. The long-form shows commissioned for BBC Three's on-demand service will also be broadcast on BBC One or BBC Two as well. There will also be a smaller saving in not having to fund a channel operation. There won't need to be a playout director, the associated support teams, and there won't need to be detailed scheduling for the service (though scheduling of the publication of on-demand content will be needed). The BBC One+1 service will presumably just be a straight time-shift of BBC One HD England in England, with a different holding caption for the 2225 regional opt (as I doubt they will time shift every English region on SD?)

There won't be a capacity saving as the the BBC Three / Three HD mux space being freed up will be re-allocated to BBC One+1. (Unless they decide not to offer a BBC One+1 HD and sell the time-exclusive spectrum to a third party - but I doubt that will happen)

One thing that hasn't been suggested AFAIK, but which would be an interesting approach, is a curated on-demand playlist for the on-demand service which you can watch as a sort of channel that you can jump around in.

This is what SVT Flow does in Sweden http://www.svtflow.se Effectively it is an on-demand service, but there is a playlist of on-demand stuff which is only a short step away from being a linear channel, but without trails, continuity etc. Much cheaper to schedule and operate and you don't have to fill a fixed amount of time. You can start viewing a show at any time, and when it finishes the next scheduled show plays. But you can jump to the next show if you want.

ALthough none of that is done by the BBC so aren't they effectively just saving Red Bee some money? Or is the contract flexible enough to get cheaper/more expensive depending on number of services?



Sounds like a good idea but is it something that will only work via the web?

It may not be solely in the BBC's hands whether the freed up space on PSB 3 is even permitted
to carry BBC 1+1HD ? If I were Ofcom/BBC Trust, I'd be pushing to have BBC 4HD take that slot
(and from 19:00hrs), and relegate BBC 1+1HD to COM 7

PSB 3 (unlike PSB1) is not 'gifted' BBC spectrum, it's a shared resource for universal provision of HD services, although the Beeb are by far the broadcaster that's shown any proper commitment to using it.

Is it that simple though? What you propose would put CBBC HD on Com7 too. Swapping the two kids channels over wouldn't work with the extended hours for CBBC

I can see the extended CBBC hours being dropped after the Trust consideration, The pressure to relocate BBX FOUR onto the universal coverage mux will be great, rather than show repeated programming in the one of five slots available everywhere on Freeview. The logical move would see

PSB 3 CBBC + BBC FOUR
COM7 CBeebies + BBC ONE +1.

CBBC deserves universal coverage too.

The only problem with swapping Four and BBC One+1 is CBeebies would have to be extended to 8pm due to the news hour on BBC1.

However, I agree that BBC Four should get universal Freeview coverage over this proposed +1 channel.

CBeebies wouldn't HAVE to move. It would just be an empty hour.