Inside The BBC’s Transformation Plan
For 2025-2026 And Beyond
Each year, the BBC (or the Beeb for the initiated) publishes an Annual Plan setting out its intentions and future priorities for the year. This 91-page document gives us an exclusive look into how a 100-year old broadcaster views its business today and how it intends to shape it tomorrow.
No guesswork, no click-bait headlines, we get to hear it from them directly.
I read their plan (as well as their 2024 Annual Report and OFCOM’s own assessment of the BBC) to give you my take on how the BBC manages its digital transformation and explore how it may inform other public and commercial broadcasters across Europe.
Today at a glance:
The BBC In A Nutshell
The BBC 2024 Performance
The Diagnosis
The Roadmap
The Funding Equation
Beyond The UK
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The BBC In A Nutshell
The BBC is a public service broadcaster whose mission is "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain".
They fulfil this mission through a portfolio of television services, radio networks, digital services in the UK as well as international through the BBC World Service.
It is principally funded through the licence fee paid by UK households and so the Annual Plan is an essential part of their accountability to licence fee payers. The BBC cannot carry advertising in the UK (but can internationally). Like most public service broadcasters, the BBC has commercial operations (BBC Studios and BBC Studioworks) whose revenues supplement the license fee revenues.
This whole construct is alien for you, my non European readers, isn’t it? ☺️
The BBC 2024 Performance
The year prior, the BBC had set its 3 key roles:
Pursuing truth: 82% of reach for BBC News and its election overage.
Backing the best homegrown storytelling: 60% of network TV spend outside of London; a combined £1.75 billion spend across video genres in 2023.
Bringing people together: Wallace & Gromit (21.6M viewers), Gavin & Stacey (21M) and the Paris Olympics (31.6M).
The BBC universe is massive so let me focus on Broadcast TV and BVOD but first off, let’s look at the BBC’s overall UK Reach (as in the total number of people who engaged with at least one BBC service) detailed in their Annual Plan as well as in the OFCOM Report: