Look at the ways in which 'old media' companies have started to use 'new media' as a way of reinventing themselves and becoming more accessible to their audiences.

Introduction

I am going to look at the ways in which ‘old media’ companies have started to use ‘new media’ as a way of reinventing themselves and becoming more accessible to their audiences. The old media consists of newspapers, magazines, analogue television and radio stations whereas new media is the internet, 3G and digital. New media is becoming increasingly popular and the features of it are being updated everyday. New media is beginning to take over as a part of everyday life. Many people who were previously comfortable with the old media are finding that new media can offer them more. New media gives an individual and personal experience, you need not access any information which does not interest you. There is a high degree of interactivity, which means that information is coming from both sides, we say what we want and we get it. New media also gives the ability for niche subjects to get more coverage. Without new media people with an interest in a niche subject, such as fishing, would be hard pressed to find the information and entertainment that they desire.

Many companies which were previously only involved in old media have begun to realise that the money now lies in new media. They have started to reinvent themselves through new technologies. Many of them now have their own web sites, for example, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, The Guardian and many other major newspapers.

I am going to focus on the BBCi web site and what it has to offer. I will explore as much of the site as possible to find useful and relevant information.

BBC

The BBC is an enormous company and so is it’s ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

I am going to focus on the BBCi web site and what it has to offer. I will explore as much of the site as possible to find useful and relevant information.

BBC

The BBC is an enormous company and so is it’s website. There are so many different pages on it that I would never be able to discover them all, let alone read them. I started from the home page . I made a screen dump of the site which you can find at the end of my piece, along with other important pages from the site. From the home page you can access all the major parts of the site and each one of those has links to other sites. The pages which I chose to focus on were the ones from the main links at the top. These are, Categories, TV, Radio, Communicate and Where I Live.

The BBC Categories page helps you to easily access the many different topics which it has to offer. I thought this was extremely useful as it is such a large site.

The Television page gives schedules for all eight BBC channels as well as an A-Z of the programmes.

The Radio page was fairly similar except that you could also listen online by launching BBC Radio Player. It also gives information about Digital Radio.

The Communicate page is very much centred around public feedback and is a place for people to have their say both about the BBC and life in general.

From the Where I Live page, you can enter pages from places all over the country. There is weather, sport, news and information about BBC programmes which may appeal to you. I also went to the BBC Cymru site which you can enter in either Welsh or English, which I thought would be very useful to people living in Wales. Radio

Radio

I decided to find out what percentage of radio’s listening audience tunes into BBC stations as oppose to commercial stations. I found a press release on the site from the 2nd Quarter 2003 and this is how the figures stood:

As you can see from the pie chart which I have created, the BBC holds the majority of the listening audience across their stations. The 47% represents commercial stations across the UK.

Telecommunications

The BBC produces a number of services that can be accessed using text messaging. Here is a screen dump of the main mobile page:

I went to the Learn Welsh site to discover more about the costs and benefits of this service. This is the information which I found,

‘With our text club, you can learn Welsh just by using your mobile phone. We'll send you weekly themed phrases at midday on Monday, Wednesday and Friday so you can carry on learning, even when you don't have web access. Join the club and stay in touch.

Please note that mobile phones cannot display certain characters, so â will appear as a^, î will appear as i^ and so on.

Subscribe by texting the word WELSH to 86222.
Each phrase sent by us, will cost the user between 13 -15p, depending on the operator.’

Features like this shows us that the BBC is trying to keep up to date with the world by offering the people what they want. Telecommunications is a large part of everyday life and people enjoy texting, the BBC is playing on this to gain our support and money.

Conclusion

During my exploration of the BBCi web site I also found sites relating to news, entertainment and business. This enormous range of information shows us just how the BBC is using new media to extend it’s reach across the UK and the rest of the world. A few years ago BBC was thought of only as a company which made television and radio programmes. Now, it is one of the main sources of information on the web offering advice and information to people of all ages. A whole range of different subjects can be explored on the site, for example, health, history, science, nature, schools, current affairs, geography and many, many others.

As the technologies we use in everyday life evolve and develop so must the companies around us. We are being provided with information and entertainment and because companies, like the BBC, want to carry on making money they must move with the times. Many of them know this and have all ready begun to use new media technologies to expand the range of information available to us.