Observer
The BBC has been forced to re-think its lavish campaign of promotional trailers following complaints from viewers and rival broadcasters.Jana Bennett, the BBC's director of television, has revealed she is to cut down the number of back-patting trailers pushing the BBC's new channels and Freeview digital services. 'We are talking about changing this at the moment,' she said last week, admitting that the expensive campaign had provoked criticism. 'It may well be we can do it differently.'
The offending series of adverts for the BBC's new digital services, which have starred Jerry Hall, Gary Lineker and Steven Berkoff, along with John Simpson, got off to a bad start with a trailer in which Fizz from The Tweenies tore her face off to reveal June Brown, the actress who plays Dot Cotton in EastEnders.
Parents complained that children were having nightmares and the BBC moved back the screening times. The most recent trailer features an old lady sitting in a bus shelter who pulls off her mask to reveal the face of the veteran news correspondent John Simpson.
The BBC's decision has been prompted by indications that the highly polished trailers shown at the 'junctions' between programmes are actually annoying viewers, rather than inspiring loyalty. Bennett denies that the amount of time given to promoting the BBC on screen has increased over the past year, but she admits the same material is now shown more frequently.
'At a time when commercial TV, especially ITV, is trying to clean up its act, particularly at programme junctions, the BBC is going in the opposite direction,' said Jim Hytner, ITV's marketing director.
The early success of Freeview, a joint digital venture between the BBC, BSkyB and the transmission firm Crown Castle, has been followed by disappointing ratings for BBC4 and BBC3.
Research carried out by Barb, the Broadcasters Audience Research Board, last month showed that those with Freeview boxes spend more than 80 per cent of viewing time watching the five terrestrial channels that they used to receive anyway.
'You can see why the BBC might think it needed to increase cross-promotion,' said Hytner. 'The interesting thing is whether the viewers will tolerate it.'
ITV, he suggests, has already cut back on self-promotion because it realised there is a limit to how much a broadcaster can communicate to viewers between programmes. 'We have simplified the way in which viewers can navigate between programmes and cut down on our trails. The BBC is going the other way,' he said.
Other competitors in the commercial sector are also annoyed that BBC trails heavily prioritise Freeview boxes, failing to make it clear that the same services are also available free-to-air for satellite and cable customers.
The potential cost, in commercial terms, of the advertising time given over to promotional trails has also annoyed licence fee payers. If the BBC had to pay to advertise on a 30-second slot on Radio 4's Today programme it would cost about £4,000 on the open market.
The BBC's push to increase awareness of its varied output may be linked to the fact the corporation's charter is up for renewal in 2006, although Bennett denies this. All the same, the BBC is warming up for a fight. 'The licence fee is an enormous privilege and an enormous responsibility.' said Caroline Thomson, the BBC's controller of public policy at an Oxford conference earlier this year. 'It is right and proper that we should have to justify our continued access to it, and that access should only come if we are seen to be living up to the obligations it brings.'
Last week the Conservative Party announced that a proposal to slash or abolish the BBC's £116 a year licence fee would be enshrined in its election manifesto. Party leader Iain Duncan Smith has ordered a review of funding methods to include introducing advertisements to the BBC and setting up subscription fees for its digital channels.