EXCLUSIVE: “Bringing BBC Three back to linear TV” would have been far down former BBC Director General Tony Hall’s list of predictions for his successor’s first major piece of business.In 2014, having only just become DG, Hall took the first forward-thinking decision of his own rein by making BBC Three a solely online channel, knocking a hefty £50M ($67.4M) from its budget (the money was diverted to drama) and acting ahead of the curve of the viewing habits of BBC Three’s younger target market, who were showing a greater propensity to watch programing on streaming platforms at a time of their choosing.Fast-forward six years and Hall’s successor, Tim Davie, dramatically U-turned, giving the greenlight to a plan that had been in the works for several months and announcing that BBC Three was to return to traditional TV sets.
Just as crucially, the channel would be given its £50M back.The woman tasked with leading the charge was Channel Controller Fiona Campbell, an optimistic, Northern Irish-based former BBC News exec who brims with confidence and vision when Deadline sits down with her over Zoom earlier this month, just weeks before February 1 launch day.Campbell has questions to answer and is prepared.First and foremost, in a world in which streaming habits have rendered appointment-to-view TV virtually null and void for anyone under the age of 35 (BBC Three’s target market), why is it being reinstated?“My feeling is that channels are still incredibly powerful,” she tells Deadline, citing BBC One’s The Green Planet, the latest David Attenborough doc that had aired the night before to 5M viewers.“I’m not denying that the competition is tough but when you look overnight at BBC One and BBC Two, there are a lot of people
Read more on deadline.com