BBC pledges £1.3m for online drama

Written by Colin Donald
Posted Thursday, 25 September, 2008 at 12:18 PM

Jane Tranter, the outgoing BBC Fiction controller, has given the UK Web show market a major boost today by committing £1.3m for original online drama projects.

According to a report in Broadcast, the commissions may also be shown on television and will ideally be targeted at younger viewers. The number of productions that the commissioning pot will fund has not been decided.

She said, “We are looking for something that would have stickiness and originality in an online world. We would be led by the fact that the demographic for online drama is young and for television drama older.”

She added that such commissioning “will grow as time goes by.”

The BBC is already a significant presence in original online drama. Geoff Goodwin at BBC Switch has recently launched To be Continued, which invites viewers to contribute to the storyline, while in August, BBC3's Danny Cohen announced he had greenlit the girl band drama Mouth to Mouth from Avalon Television.

This move now places it more clearly in competition with social networking site Bebo, which already commissions long-form dramas such as Sofia’s Diary and last month appointed former KateModern series producer Kelly Brett as Head of Original Productions.

What might suit the BBC online? See Tranter’s overall wishlist for new television drama projects for some clues.

UPDATE

Via Twitter, digital writer Tim Wright of the pioneering Web drama Online Caroline asks the key question:

So how many original online dramas can you make for £1.3m? one? thirteen? twenty-six? ;-)

Comments

[Garret Keogh]

I was thinking the same as Tim. You don't get a lot of drama for 1.3million. Even in the digital space.