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22 Jul, 2002

Defends increased BBC web spending

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Highfield defends the previous year’s decision by the BBC to almost double the amount invested in the corporation’s websites. The corporation spent £100.4m on the internet last year, compared with £54.2m the year before. Including interactive television, the total expenditure rises to £111.6m. Highfield says future spending will be capped at 3%. Commercial rivals and some MPs have criticised the BBC’s spending, arguing it is using licence fee-payers’ money to provide online services already offered by the commercial sector.

Having arrived from the commercial sector, I’m always acutely aware of this. Whenever I think about where we’re going to put our money, I always carefully consider the consequences for the private sector. I trebled the amount we spend on nations and regions, increasing the number of Where I Live regional sites from 13 to 37. It doesn’t block out any commercial interest because most existing regional sites are heavily based on classified advertising.

A large proportion of the extra money was spent on upgrading the BBC’s server technology to cope with the increase in users following September 11.

Part of our original commitment was to encourage people to come on to the web and I think we’re doing that. Of the 500,000 visitors who used the Test the Nation site on the day of the broadcast, 300,000 had never visited the BBC site before.

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