The return of BBC Three is a strangely pointless gesture
It’s coming back as a broadcast channel, but will its target audience really care, asks Michael Hogan
So BBC Three is going back to being a broadcast channel – five years after it left our TVS and became an online-only affair. It’s a baffling move by the BBC which will no doubt be welcomed by some and met by others with eye-rolling indifference.
The youth and comedy channel, aimed at viewers aged 16 to 34, will return to “proper” TV from January 2022 as part of the corporation’s “drive to deliver more value to audiences”. Its research says there’s an available audience on broadcast television for BBC Three. Presumably this is different to the 2016 research which said there wasn’t.
In some ways, I’m pleased the BBC has belatedly realised its mistake and rescued the channel from its digital ghetto. It was a great shame when it left the airwaves, feeling like another nail in the coffin of old-fashioned telly.
The fracturing of the broadcasting landscape – a faintly depressing future where everyone streamed “content” (that ghastly word) on their own devices, rather than sitting down to watch shows together – continued apace. The channel’s return feels symbolic; as if the BBC is trying to prove it’s not merely scrambling to compete with Netflix.
Yet it also feels futile. Despite what the BBC said yesterday about new research identifying “a significant group of younger viewers who maintain a strong linear TV habit”, other experts say the move away from traditional TV among young viewers has become a “surge”. They watch “content” on their tablets, laptops or phones. Why put BBC Three back on TV if they’re not going to know it’s there, let alone actually watch it? You have to ask why waste licencepayers’ money (they will be doubling the channel’s budget over the next two years) on wooing an audience who have already left? Wouldn’t the BBC be better serving the viewers it already has, especially at a time when over-75s are being chased for licence fees? Ironically, BBC Three’s programming quality has blossomed since 2016. The fledgling channel thrived after its 2003 launch under controller Stuart Murphy (now head of English National Opera). He commissioned
Little Britain and Gavin & Stacey, which went on to become mainstream hits. Quality dipped after Murphy departed and the channel became stuck in a rut, precipitating its move online.
It has since become quite the hit factory. BBC Three was the original home of some of the BBC’S bestperforming recent shows – the likes of Killing Eve, Fleabag and Normal People. Its strong comedy stable includes This Country and People Just Do Nothing. Entertainment series such as Rupaul’s Drag Race rub shoulder-pads with acclaimed documentaries by Stacey Dooley and Little Mix’s Jesy Nelson.
Restoring the channel to linear TV will allow productions to be promoted properly again. Bigger BBC Three shows do tend to get a terrestrial airing eventually but usually late at night. A dedicated channel will enable them to air in prime time, as well as help the channel to attract bigger budgets.
You wonder what this means for dear old BBC Four. Might this positive announcement be paving the way for bad news? The channel has long been withering on the vine. Its schedules are crammed with repeats, featuring only a few new programmes per week. The resurgence of Sky Arts, which has arrived on Freeview, has only made it look more unloved. Could BBC Four soon be heading in the opposite direction and going online? Perhaps, even axed for good?
BBC Three should never have left broadcast TV in the first place. Its comeback is confusing when the corporation said that commissioning for specific channels was not important. Now Tim Davie is backtracking and deliberately undoing the work of his predecessor Tony Hall. A perfect example of the BBC tying itself in knots.