BBC Three
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| BBC Three
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BBC Three, the successor to the similar BBC Choice, is a British television channel from the BBC broadcasting only on digital cable, terrestrial and satellite.
BBC Three was launched on February 9, 2003, eleven months after its originally planned launch date (and the launch of BBC Four). The delay was due to debate over its proposed format - some felt it would not be sufficiently different to existing commercial channels catering to young people.
The channel is described by the BBC as an outlet for 'New drama, New talent, British comedy, top films and accessible news'. The channel is on-air from 19:00 to 04:00 each night, in order to share terrestrial digital bandwidth with the CBBC channel.
Unlike its commercial rivals, 90% of BBC Three's output is from the United Kingdom and other European Union countries. 80% is original, covering all genres, from current affairs, to drama, to comedy to animation. BBC Three has a unique '60 second news' format. This was adopted so that operation of the channel could be completely automated, without the complication of dealing with variable length live news broadcasts.
The station was launched by Stuart Murphy, who previously ran BBC Choice, and before that UK Play, the now-discontinued UKTV music and comedy channel on which ran Rock Profile, by Matt Lucas and David Walliams (who went on to star in Little Britain). At 33, Murphy was the youngest channel controller in the country, a title he held since launching UK Play at the age of 26, although on October 20 2005 it was announced that Murphy was soon to leave the channel to work in the independent sector. On December 5, the BBC announced E4 controller Julian Bellamy as his replacement. The scheduler is Damian Kavanagh, who used to schedule BBC One.
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[edit] Identity
The channel's idents were conceived by Stefan Marjoram at Aardman Animations and have been used since the channel was first launched. According to reports, Stuart Murphy was touring Aardman Animations looking for new programming ideas for BBC Three when he spotted the cone shaped creatures, he then took the idea back to the Lambie-Nairn agency, responsible for the BBC Three identity package. A feature of this identity is also the music "Three Is The Magic Number", based (only the lyrics are copied) upon Schoolhouse Rock!.
BBC.co.uk provides a number of downloads and activities based on the channels identity, these include "BlobMate", screensavers, wallpapers and also games such as BlobLander and BlobBert.
The idea used by both Lambie Nairn, which had developed the branding for CBeebies and CBBC, and Aardman was to create the BBC Three blobs as a relation to the green and yellow blobs of the children's channels.
The channel has two continuity announcers, one male with a Scottish accent and another female, Lola Buckley who has a "Husky, Northern Lass" Yorkshire accent.
[edit] Programmes
In early 2003, viewers could watch episodes of popular BBC soap opera EastEnders on BBC Three before they were broadcast on BBC One. This was to coincide with the relaunch of the channel and helped it break the one million viewers milestone for the first time with 1,030,000 who watched to see the departure of character Mark Fowler. The episode was not originally commissioned for the channel. An episode of EastEnders Revealed, which was commissioned for BBC Three, attracted 611,000 viewers.
In October 2004, BBC Three broke its previous records at the time, when 1.8 million viewers tuned in for a new series of the award-winning comedy, Little Britain. Little Britain was later broadcast on the BBC's terrestrial analogue channels BBC One and BBC Two.
In 2005, BBC Three showed the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential immediately after episodes of the new series of Doctor Who had been screened on BBC One. This was followed up in July 2005, when it began to screen it repeats of both programmes. Coincidentally, the 1971 Doctor Who story The Dæmons featured a broadcast on a then-fictional BBC Three. In October 2005, it was announced that BBC Three had commissioned a spin-off drama series from Doctor Who, Torchwood, designed as a post-watershed drama for a more adult science-fiction audience. Torchwood is the first science-fiction programme ever to have been commissioned by the channel, although it had previously shown repeats of Doctor Who and imported programmes such as Farscape.
"Torchwood" launched with an impressive 2.4 million viewers in October 2006, not only breaking BBC Three's previous record of 1.8 million, but it is also believed to be the biggest ever multichannel audience for a UK-originated, non-sports programme, thought to be second only to an episode of Friends, broadcast on Sky One in 2000, which attracted 2.8 million viewers. The second episode attracted an equally impressive 2.3 million viewers, and boosted BBC3 to a 3.5% share of multichannel viewing that evening, compared to the network's three month Sunday average of 0.9%.
Successful new programmes have included Funland, described as being a 'disturbingly funny new thriller', which first aired on Sunday 23 October at 10pm. It has since been repeated on prime-time BBC One. Another new programme which crossed channels has been Man Stroke Woman, a sketch show starring Nick Frost and Nick Burns, mostly dealing with relationships of 20- and 30-somethings, which first aired on November 21st 2005. Based on the programme's success, it began to be repeated on BBC Two
The channel features hourly news updates called 60 Seconds, which includes the top news, sport and entertainment stories. It is presented in a cheeky, relaxed style in keeping with the rest of the channel. As part of the BBC's discussions with the government in whether the channel could launch originally, a longer news programme had been promised to provide a daily section of news and current affairs. The News Show, as it came to be called upon launch was later rebranded the 7 O' Clock News. However, the BBC discontinued the bulletin in 2005, claiming that in fact, the programme's audiences were miniscule and the output was provided elsewhere on the BBC.
In 2006, BBC Three aired the first run of a back-up show for BBC2's The Apprentice, You're Fired until sport and high ratings moved it to BBC Two.
Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps is the channel's longest running comedy and is one of the most watched.
BBC Three sometimes airs football matches in Match of the Day Live. These are often matches deemed less popular. For example, BBC Three has shown internationals featuring Wales if an England match is being shown on BBC One. BBC Three also shows some matches of England's Women's team.
[edit] Viewership
The channel is aimed at 25-34 year olds, and is second in digital channel ratings behind ITV2, but above Sky One, double the ratings of E4, LIVINGtv and Paramount Comedy 1.
Its share of the audience during its transmission hours is 2.6% among 25-34 year olds, and 1.7% among all individuals. BARB, the official ratings agency, averages out BBC Three's viewing figures over 24 hours even though the channel only broadcasts in the evening, giving a distorted sense of the channel's viewership. Despite several official complaints from the BBC, BARB continues to publish figures which the BBC argues are unrepresentative. Nine million people watch BBC Three every week.
[edit] Awards and criticism
The channel has had critical and popular successes, winning more awards in its two-and-a-half-year history than its commercial rivals (Sky One, LIVINGtv, E4, ITV2, Five and Paramount Comedy Channel) have won in their combined 25-year history. In total BBC Three has won 6 BAFTA awards, 5 British Comedy Awards, 15 Royal Television Society Awards and 5 Rose d'Or Awards since the channel was launched in February 2003. Most recently, it won Broadcast Magazine's Digital Channel of the Year Award for Best General Entertainment Channel, and MGEITF Non Terrestrial Channel of the Year.
These awards were for comedy shows Little Britain, The Mighty Boosh, The Smoking Room, Nighty Night and the dark animation Monkey Dust. All three of BBC Three's dramas produced in 2004 (Outlaws, Bodies and Conviction) received BAFTA nominations, as did classical music show Flashmob The Opera. Parenting show Little Angels also won awards.
The output of the channel has been criticised by Private Eye, which argued that the £90m set up of the channel was too costly and driven by consultants and too much of the schedule is taken up with the celebrity filler items and spin-offs of unpopular programmes such as Fame Academy.
[edit] External links
- BBC Three at bbc.co.uk
- Stuart Murphy interviewed
- TV Radio Bits - A site including BBC TV Idents, Eurovision, Radio, and other bits and pieces
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