BBC appoints first online access champion

The BBC has appointed its first online access champion in a bid to get more people to use its online services.

BBC Online controller Seetha Kumar has been tasked with encouraging more people to use the broadcaster’s online services.

The role will sit alongside her existing position.

The position was announced at today’s (April 17) Digital Britain summit by the BBC’s COO Caroline Thomson along with the launch of a new BBC online access forum.

The forum is designed to bring together BBC resources to help to convert the estimated 17m UK adults who currently don’t go online.

Thomson said, “We’re determined to do more to attract hard-to-reach groups online. There’s also more we can do to encourage access to content beyond the BBC: from enabling higher traffic from our website to others; to opening up the iPlayer to other broadcasters; to sharing and syndicating BBC content more widely.”

Earlier at the summit, Gordon Brown said that Britian take the lead in the global digital revolution in order to stay competitive.