There should be tighter controls on the management of the BBC’s website - in part to prevent it stifling commercial rivals, the BBC Trust has said, reports BBC News. After reviewing bbc.co.uk, the trust said it was “an excellent service” but that its content had to be different from that on rival websites. And it criticised the site’s management for a £3.5 million overspend last year.The report is the first of a number of reviews of the BBC’s services as part of its new charter and agreement. The trust, an independent body which works on behalf of licence payers, has taken responsibility for such reviews from the Culture Secretary to establish greater independence for the BBC from the government.
In its report, the trust said the BBC website delivered great public value to the “vast numbers who use it [and] love it”. It said the site had 16.5 million users each month and continued to grow despite competition.
Representatives of competitors, including ITN and the Newspaper Society, were consulted as part of the review.
(Source: Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)