Stephen Hayes
By email to: [FOI #43753 email]
3 September 2010
Dear Mr Hayes
Freedom of Information Act 2000 – reference number RFI20101068
Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act (‘the Act’) of 5 August 2010
seeking:
“Since the recent website design it has been apparent that the BBC is giving massive support and
branding to certain private companies such as Twitter and Facebook. Although these social
networking sites are very popular at the moment I am wondering why the BBC is promoting these
exclusively as links on many of their pages.
My questions are:
a) Does the BBC receive any marketing or advertising money from either of these sites and if so
how much?
b) Who agreed the decision to allow these social networking sites to have permanent linkage on
many of the BBC pages and what is the reasoning behind the decision?
c) Does the BBC consider in any way that they may be unfairly promoting these particular social
networking sites at the expense of lesser known rivals?
d) Is the promotion of these particular two sites for any specific agreed period of time?”
In response:
a) Does the BBC receive any marketing or advertising money from either of these
sites and if so how much?
No, the BBC does not receive any marketing or advertising revenue from Facebook or Twitter.
The BBC operates under strict rules regarding commercial activities. These can be found in
section 2 of the BBC’s Fair Trading Guidelines:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/policies/fairtrading/
b) Who agreed the decision to allow these social networking sites to have permanent
linkage on many of the BBC pages and what is the reasoning behind the decision?
The proposal to allow links on the BBC’s web pages to Facebook and Twitter was put to and was
agreed by the BBC’s Editorial Standards Board and BBC Fair Trading. The presence of Facebook
and Twitter linking buttons on the BBC website is not necessarily permanent, nor are the
arrangements exclusive, as explained below with regard to the Share button, and is subject to a six
monthly review process. We are in an experimental phase with this form of linking and are
assessing its impact on a regular basis.
In determining the approach to linking to social sites, the BBC used three main criteria: referrals,
technical capability and market share.
1. Referrals
In the UK, Facebook and Twitter sites provide most referrals to BBC Online and the number of
referrals is increasing, making them the most effective sites in meeting the BBC Trust’s imperative
of offering users greater control over how they consume BBC content. The widespread use of
third party applications for Facebook and Twitter suggests that their referrals are likely to be even
higher than actually reported.
2. Technical capability
Not all external social sites have the necessary technical capability to enable the BBC to deploy
share tools. Facebook and Twitter, along with the sites provided through the “Share” button, have
the necessary capability to support “sharing” behaviour, that is, the ability to take a URL and easily
post it on the third party site in order to highlight it to the users’ friends.
3. Market share
Facebook is currently the largest social network in the UK and its audience share is growing year-
on-year. Twitter, although having a smaller audience than Facebook, is growing faster than any
other social network.
c) Does the BBC consider in any way that they may be unfairly promoting these
particular social networking sites at the expense of lesser known rivals?
Our adherence to our Fair Trading guidelines ensures that we have a consistent and objective
approach to assessing the viability of linking to other social network sites in accordance with the
above criteria.
d) Is the promotion of these particular two sites for any specific agreed period of
time?
On the BBC News web pages and elsewhere on the BBC web site, there are three buttons that
allow users to share links with external websites: “Facebook”, “Twitter” and “Share”. The Share
button provides a choice of four additional social/bookmarking websites - currently Digg, Reddit,
Delicious and Stumbleupon.
In the UK, Facebook and Twitter are the social networking web sites that licence fee payers are
currently choosing to use over others and the BBC’s aim is to reflect users’ choices and help them
make use of their preferred sites.
The popularity of social sites will inevitably change over time and the BBC will continue to
monitor the success of these sites and will keep under review the list of sites available for linking
so that we continue to match the preferences of licence fee payers. BBC Fair Trading approval
was dependent on regular six-monthly reviews of our choice of social media sites to ensure that
there is no adverse market impact.
More information about sharing with these sites can be found in the “help” page at this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10623543
We hope you find this information useful.
Appeal Rights
If you are not satisfied with this response you have the right to an internal review by a BBC senior
manager or legal adviser. Please contact us at the address above, explaining what you would like us
to review and including your reference number. If you are not satisfied with the internal review,
you can appeal to the Information Commissioner. The contact details are: Information
Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, telephone
01625 545 700 or see http://www.ico.gov.uk/
Yours sincerely
L. Stiller
Legal and Business Affairs Manager
Future Media & Technology
