Fans of the BBC around the world – but not the UK – will see an overhauled website in the coming months, complete with a new travel section courtesy of Lonely Planet.
Although the UK’s publicly-funded web news service was relaunched this week, BBC Worldwide (the commercial wing of the corporation) is separately looking to revamp the entire BBC.com platform later this summer for users outside of the UK.
BBC.com is supported by advertising and has a wider remit to work with thirds partners or, in this case, utilise some of the corporation’s myriad of commercial operations.
The BBC’s relationship with Lonely Planet (it bought a 75% stake in the company in 2007) is still hugely controversial and plans for the coming months are likely to reinvigorate the debate.
The existing BBC.com carries a widget on the homepage, directing users to Lonely Planet. However, the new incarnation will, for the first time, have a dedicated travel section as one of the main channels on the site.
The idea is to include travel-related material penned by the BBC’s own reporters but also bring in content from LonelyPlanet.com to help populate the channel. A full-time editor was unveiled this week in the shape of ex-New York Times travel and style editor, David Allan.
A BBC Worldwide official says the most likely material will be in the form of destination guides, travel advice and holiday tips, presumably with other interactive functions elsewhere on the Lonely Planet site such as maps.
Other details are still to be confirmed, such as whether LP’s user generated content on the Thorn Tree forums will be fed into the BBC site.
However the corporation says the new travel channel will not have any of the travel search functions that exist on LP for flights, hotels and other travel services.
This is totally anti-competitive. I just can’t see how the BBC can justify it. If I was a media owner running a travel-related site in one of these markets I’d be pretty hacked off.
I wonder though what it means for LP’s own website? There’s a big risk of cannibalisation and I imagine LP relies on its site for a lot of ad-revenue.
Hardly surprising but yes, outrageously anti-competitive. The content will get pinged around socnets and indexed anyway. On a wider note, if the UK gov is serious about rebalancing the economy then they’ve got to do something about the BBC. At least the other new media behemoths like Google and Facebook give something back. Aunty just takes the £3.5b and makes itself stronger. I wonder why?
Totally agree with Jeremy and James. And who wants to continue to read the same old and often outdated repurposed content? LP content keeps cropping up everywhere and I seem my own work from 4, 5 and 6 years ago on travel sites which obviously have no idea – or even care – what they’re buying.