BBC management has finally submitted plans to the corporation’s governing body setting out formal proposals for axing a TV channel, BBC3, for the first time in the broadcaster’s history.
The plans, which were first announced in March and originally due to go before the BBC Trust in October, detail the rationale for making BBC3 online-only.
“The BBC Trust has now received the detail of proposals from the BBC executive to close BBC3 as a broadcast channel and re-invent it as an online-only proposition,” said the BBC Trust in a statement on Friday. “The [Trust Services Committee] have confirmed that these proposals represent a significant change to the UK public services.”
A public consultation on the proposals will begin in January, with the trust intending to publish “as much relevant information on the proposal as possible, including the application from the [BBC] executive”.
A campaign to save BBC3, which uses the call to arms “TV wouldn’t make sense without it”, has amassed more than 265,000 signatures petitioning the corporation to rethink its strategy.
The BBC Trust will also conduct a public-value test, while media regulator Ofcom will conduct a market-impact assessment.
“Licence fee payers, audience groups and industry stakeholders [will] have an opportunity to have their say on the proposals,” said the BBC Trust.
The plans, which will be discussed at the BBC Trust’s final meeting of the year on 17 December, also include proposals to use the bandwidth freed up by axing the BBC3 TV channel to launch a BBC+1 service and extend the hours for children’s channel CBBC. They also include proposals for enhancing BBC iPlayer.
The BBC estimates it will save £50m annually by shutting the TV channel in the autumn of 2015, although some BBC3 programmes will continue to be aired on BBC1 and other channels.
In 2010, the trust vetoed plans to shut BBC 6 Music following a campaign to save the digital radio station, with 100,000 people signing on online petition to keep it running.
The publicity helped kickstart a surge in 6 Music’s listening figures, which have since resulted in it becoming more popular than FM stablemate Radio 3.
BBC3, which launched in 2003, built its reputation on the back of comedies such as Little Britain, Julia Davis’s Nighty Night and Him and Her, as well as dramas such as Being Human and documentaries including its Bafta-winning Our War, about young troops in Afghanistan. It is also home to critically acclaimed comedy show Gavin & Stacey.
But it has also proved controversial, with shows such as Hotter than my Daughter, My Man Boobs and Me, Snog, Marry, Avoid? and F*** Off, I’m Ginger.
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