BBC News 24 launches first all-UGC news programme

by Amy Dry, Brand Republic 27-Nov-06, 09:00

LONDON - BBC News 24 has launched what is believed to be the first all user-generated news programme, 'Your News', featuring new stories made up from material sent in by the public.

'Your News', which began a pilot run on Saturday, contains stories judged the most popular with viewers on TV and the web.

Kevin Bakhurst, controller of BBC News 24, said: "'Your News' will make use of the huge range of material being sent into the BBC by the public, some of which has already provided real newsgathering value. 'Your News' will reflect the stories catching our audience's eye and talking to them directly about the issues they feel really matter."

The news programme draws on the wealth of user-generation content to help journalists deal with the thousands of emails and images they receive every day.

'Your News', presented by Richard Bilton and reporter Laura Jones, will run weekly features with a wide range of audience-driven content, including Your Story, Your Pictures and Your Top Story.

Your Story incorporates a weekly news report covering an issue raised by a member of the public. On Saturday, the programme featured the case of a man who contacted the BBC after he discovered the hospital where his wife died did not have a licence to perform a tissue donation as she had wanted.

American broadcaster CNN has already launched a user-generated content portal on its homepage, featuring video, audio and written reports of what it calls citizen journalism.

Earlier this month, the BBC said it wanted to employ more user-generated content and firmed up its policy on the issue to help journalists deal with the thousands of emails and images it receives every day.

Under the new guidelines, the BBC emphasises that it considers payment for submissions that are deemed to be "particularly editorially important or unique", but stressed it did not want to encourage audiences to believe that that payment is the norm.

On Sunday, it was reported that user-generated content YouTube rival Break.com would nearly double the amount of money it pays for video clips to $400. In January 2005, Break.com started paying $50 a video before going up to $250 to get the best content.

However, not all efforts in the UGC arena are proving successful. A recent effort by the BBC's 'Newsnight' progamme to encourage viewers to make short videos flopped with very few entries sent in.

Peter Barron, Newsnight editor, said: "A few weeks back we launched 'Oh My Newsnight', an invitation to make a short film for the programme to run early next year.

"What's surprising is that while many viewers are prepared to sit down and create lengthy and thoughtful blogs about what we're doing on 'Newsnight' -- or what we should be doing -- which will be read by about 50,000 hardened blog watchers, almost no one seems to want to commit those thoughts to video, with a potential audience of a million viewers."

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