BBC iPlayer to lose radio content as part of online overhaul

The BBC has revealed the iPlayer will no longer include radio content as part of its restructuring of BBC Online.

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It has also pledged not to use the iPlayer as an aggregator or to launch its own social network. It will, however, continue to work with third parties to integrate further social functions into the iPlayer.

“Radio and music will come out of BBC iPlayer, and we¹ll develop a new stand-alone product,” said Erik Huggers, outgoing director of Future Media & Technology. “All radio station sites, music events, podcasts and programme pages will be integrated to focus on interactive live radio, quick and seamless access to programming, support for new music and personalisation – on whatever internet-connected device you happen to have,” he said.

The broadcaster revealed the changes as it confirmed it’s to slash 400 top domains as part of its cost-cutting strategy, which will see its service licence budget cut by £34m to £103m by 2013/14.

It’s consolidating its strategy to focus on ten product domains. These will include News, Sports, Weather, iPlayer & TV, Cbeebies, CBBC, Knowledge & Learning, Radio & Music, home page and Search.

Domains including Raw, Blast, Switch and Video Nation will be among those to close.

The reshaped BBC Online will result in 360 job losses, staggered over the next two years. The BBC Vision division will lose 85-90 posts.

Erik Huggers, outgoing director of Future Media & Technology, said it will look at linking its websites with Facebook so that users can log in to the sites from their Facebook accounts.

“This is the first time there has been a single, unified strategy across the entire BBC Online proposition, and with it we’ll do less better and will provide a world-class digital proposition,” he says.

The BBC has also pledged to double the amount of traffic it passes to external websites, to 22m a month.

This story first appeared on newmediaage.co.uk
A line has been added to this article to clarify the position of BBC’s iPlayer

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