| BBC Three | |
|---|---|
| BBC Three logo | |
| Launched | 9 February 2003 |
| Owned by | BBC |
| Picture format | 16:9 SDTV |
| Audience share | 1.4% (October 2011, BARB) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Replaced | BBC Choice |
| Sister channel(s) | BBC One BBC Two BBC Four BBC News BBC Parliament BBC HD |
| Website | www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree |
| Availability | |
| Terrestrial | |
| Freeview | Channel 7 |
| Satellite | |
| Freesat | Channel 106 |
| Sky (UK) | Channel 115 |
| Sky (Ireland) | Channel 229 |
| Astra 2D | 10773H 22000 5/6 |
| Cable | |
| Virgin Media | Channel 106 |
| UPC Ireland | Channel 116 |
| UPC Netherlands | Channel 52 |
| WightCable | Channel 106/10 |
| Smallworld Cable | Channel 118 |
| Ziggo (Netherlands) | Channel 52 |
| Telenet (Belgium) | Channel 565 |
| Naxoo (Switzerland) | Channel 215 |
| IPTV | |
| TalkTalk TV | Channel 19 |
| Internet television | |
| BBC Online | Watch live (UK only) |
| TVCatchup | Watch live (UK only) |
| BBC iPlayer | Watch live (UK only) |
BBC Three is a television network from the BBC broadcasting via digital cable, terrestrial, IPTV and satellite platforms. The channel's target audience includes those in the 16-34 year old age group, and has the purpose of providing "innovative" content to younger audiences, focusing on new talent and new technologies.[1] The channel is on-air from 19:00 to around 04:00 each night,[1] in order to share terrestrial television bandwidth with the CBBC Channel[2]. 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 Seconds format for its news bulletins. 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 current controller of the station is Zai Bennett[3] and the Head of Scheduling is Dan McGolpin.
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In late 2001, the BBC decided to reposition and rebrand their two digital channels, so that they could be more closely linked to the well established BBC One and Two. Their plan was for BBC Knowledge to be renamed BBC Four, and indeed this took place in 2002, and for BBC Choice to be renamed BBC Three. However, questions were raised over the propsed format of the new BBC Three, as some thought the new format would be too similar to the BBC's commercial rivals, namely ITV2 and E4, and would be unnecessary competition. The channel was eventually given the go ahead, eleven months after the original launch date, and launched on 9 February 2003.[4] The channel was launched by Stuart Murphy, who previously ran BBC Choice, and before that UK Play, the now-discontinued UKTV music and comedy channel. 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 20 October 2005 it was announced that Murphy was soon to leave the channel to work in commercial television.
On 12 May 2011, BBC Three was added to the Sky EPG in Ireland on channel 229.[5]
The remit of BBC Three is to bring younger audiences to high quality public service broadcasting through a mixed-genre schedule of innovative UK content featuring new UK talent. The channel should use the full range of digital platforms to deliver its content and to build an interactive relationship with its audience. The channel’s target audience is 16-34 year olds.
— BBC Three Remit[6]
Targetting an audience of 16 to 34 year olds,[7] BBC Three's programme has to compete heavily with rivals, including ITV2 and E4,[8] for an audience that the BBC has traditionally had difficulty in attracting. In 2008 it reached 26.3% of 16-34 year olds in digital homes — the channel's highest ever such reach and above that of E4, ITV2, Dave and Sky One.[9] On average, nine million people watch BBC Three every week,[10] and it has a 2.6% share of he 15-34 year old audience and 1.7% of the whole population, according to BARB. These ratings by BARB, the official ratings agency, average out BBC Three's viewing figures over a 24 hour period 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.
BBC Three's programming consists of comedy, drama, spin-off series and repeated episodes of series from BBC One and Two, and other programmes that attempt to alert others of their actions through a series of programmes challenging common beliefs.
The following is a list of the ten most watched broadcasts on BBC Three, from BARB data up to 1 May 2011.[11]
| Rank | Show | Episode | Number of Viewers (thousands) | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eastenders Live: The Aftermath | N/A | 4,537 | 19 February 2010 |
| 2 | Torchwood | 1.1 Everything Changes | 2,519 | 22 October 2006 |
| 3 | Torchwood | 1.2 Day One | 2,498 | 22 October 2006 |
| 4 | The Weakest Link | EastEnders Special | 2,005 | 19 February 2010 |
| 5 | EastEnders | 07/07/2009 | 1,907 | 7 July 2009 |
| 6 | Gavin & Stacey | 2.1 | 1,894 | 16 March 2008 |
| 7 | Gavin & Stacey | 2.2 | 1,869 | 16 March 2008 |
| 8 | EastEnders | 01/06/2010 | 1,801 | 1 June 2010 |
| 9 | Gavin & Stacey | 2.4 | 1,799 | 30 March 2008 |
| 10 | EastEnders | 31/03/2009 | 1,795 | 31 March 2009 |
An example of BBC Three's comedy output includes the award-winning comedy, Little Britain, which in October 2004 broke its previous viewing record when 1.8 million viewers tuned in for a new series.[10] Little Britain was later broadcast on the BBC's terrestrial analogue channels BBC One and BBC Two. The channels longest running comedy programme is Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. Some current programmes feature stand-up comedians performing their own take on a subject, usually the news, examples of which include Russell Howard's Good News and Lee Nelson's Well Good Show.
The channel airs various dramas, one of it's most popular is Gavin & Stacey, which first aired in May, 2007 and was written by and starring Ruth Jones and James Corden alongside Mathew Horne, Joanna Page, Alison Steadman and Rob Brydon. The drama was an instant hit, with subsequent series being moved to other BBC channels and the show being granted a christmas special. Another example is Being Human, a drama in which a ghost, a vampire and a werewolf share a flat, which has become a success and heralded several new series. American programming also features, with American Dad! and Family Guy being the notable examples.
Numerous popular series are either repeated on the channel or have spin-offs created from them. In early 2003, viewers could watch episodes of popular BBC soap opera EastEnders on BBC Three before they were broadcast on BBC One. This programming decision coincided with the relaunch of the channel and helped it break the one million viewers milestone for the first time. An episode of EastEnders Revealed, which was commissioned for BBC Three and looking behind the scenes of the programme, attracted 611,000 viewers. In 2005, BBC Three commisioned the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential, which was shown 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 repeats of both programmes. 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 science fiction drama for a more adult audience. Torchwood launched with an impressive 2.4 million viewers in October 2006.[12]Torchwood is the first science fiction programme ever to have been commissioned by the channel, and it's popularity led to it being broadcast on BBC Two for the second series, and on BBC One for subsequent series. In 2006, BBC Three aired the first run of a back-up show for BBC Two's The Apprentice. You're Fired! ran until sport and high ratings moved it to BBC Two. In 2010, BBC Three began airing episodes of the fifth series of BBC drama series Waterloo Road after they had aired on BBC One as part of its 'catch-up' programming.
BBC Three also airs documentaries aimed at challenging beliefs of young people. These include pan-psychology based programmes which bring topics such as addictions and childcare into an entertainment and educational context; notable programmes include Freaky Eaters, Spendaholics, The House of Tiny Tearaways and Sex...with Mum & Dad. The channel has also taken on the beauty market through programmes aimed at challenging beliefs into what beauty is: this is most vocalised through one of the channel's top shows, Snog Marry Avoid?.
The channel features hourly news updates called 60 Seconds, presented by Sam Naz during the week, which include the top news, sport and entertainment stories. They are presented in a relaxed style in keeping with the rest of the channel. As part of the BBC's discussions with the government regarding the founding of the channel, 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 the programme's audience was minuscule and the output was provided elsewhere on the BBC.
The channel also shows some sport, primarily Match of the Day Live, broadcasting international football matches featuring Wales, often when an England match is being shown on BBC One. The channel also shows some matches of England's Women's team. The 2008 Africa Cup of Nations was shown on the channel from 20 January – 10 February 2008.
The channel's original idents were conceived by Stefan Marjoram at Aardman Animations and were used from launch until February 2008. 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.[13] A feature of this identity is also the music "Three Is The Magic Number", based (only the lyrics are copied) upon Schoolhouse Rock!.
BBC Online provided a number of downloads and activities based on the channel's identity, these included "BlobMate", screensavers, wallpapers and also games such as BlobLander and BlobBert. The idea used by both Lambie-Nairn, who 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. Up until they rebranded the channel, it had two continuity announcers, Kieron Elliott and Lola Buckley. Both announcers have distinct accents: Scottish and a Yorkshire accent respectively, and allowed the channel to seem more in tune with viewers. Currently the channel's announcers are Gavin Inskip and Jayne Sharp with out-of-vision continuity presented live during peak time.
On 22 January 2008 a new channel identity was unveiled. Rebranding was carried out by Red Bee Media, along with agencies MPG and Agency Republic with music and sound design by creative audio company Koink.[14]
The channel has had critical and popular successes, winning more awards in its six year history than its commercial rivals (Sky One, Living, E4, ITV2, Five and Comedy Central) have won in their combined 25-year history. In total BBC Three has won 7 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.
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
In 2008, BBC Three's Gavin & Stacey won the BAFTA audience award and the best comedy performance award was awarded to James Corden for his part.
The channel has also come in for criticism from several corners, the most prominent of which are some of the BBC's long-standing presenters. These include John Humphrys, who argued that BBC Three and BBC Four should be shut down in the face of budget cuts to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, which he presents,[15] John Sweeney of Panorama,[16] and Jeremy Paxman are among other journalists who have also criticised the channel and its content.[17]
In July 2010 a UK music magazine printed a letter from the pressure group Friends of Radio 3 that criticised BBC Three for having 'comedies, game shows, films and documentaries, but no arts programming at all'.[18] In a later issue another correspondent endorsed this assessment on the basis of a search through issues of the Radio Times, and cast doubt on the BBC's claim (in the document Performance Against Public Commitments 2009/10) that the channel broadcast '54 hours of new music and arts programming' in that year.[19] Two months later the same correspondent wrote in to inform readers that the BBC had refused his 'Freedom of Information' request concerning the titles of the programmes used in calculating the '54 hours' total.[20]
Long before the channel exsisted, many parodies of a channel called "BBC 3" were aired. One of these was in the Doctor Who serial The Dæmons, where the station "BBC 3 TV" is having problems airing a show titled Devil's Night. Another was in Roland Rat: The Series where a parody of the BBC Two 'TWO' ident, which features the words "TWO", instead features the words "THREE".
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