The event took place on Friday 17th July at BAFTA, and earlier that day the launch of the new BBC News platform for connected TVs had been announced.

A demo of this was shrouded under a black cloth as delegates arrived; all very mysterious apart from the fact that news of the launch was already spreading across the twittersphere like wildfire. The demo proved to be very popular anyway as did Director of BBC Future Media, Ralph Rivera's presentation about the way BBC Online will look in the future.

The strategy is built on the idea of leveraging new, connected technology to enhance the BBC's storytelling. 'One Service, Ten Products, Four Screens' was one of the themes for the day, and there were lots of discussions with developers and content makers about how that could take shape.

Picture of Holly by Richard Coope

Next up was Head of Audiences, Holly Goodier, who had some interesting statistics about how audience behaviour is changing in this digital age.

She revealed that approximately 9% of all TV viewing is now time-shifted, and that figure may grow to 15% in 2016.

After a networking and coffee break delegates had to choose one of two sessions: A series of talks on doing business with the BBC and developing content for the web, or presentations from Daniel Danker about the evolution of the iPlayer followed by Phil Fearnley and Sinead Rocks from News and Knowledge and BBC Learning.

The session with Phil and Sinead was of particular interest to me, as we regularly have viewers of BBC Click asking how they can use our material in the classroom. The duo revealed a first look at a "concept car platform" that lets audiences clip, combine & save content from a variety of different sources, to be used in whatever way they want on whatever platform they prefer.

The day closed with a question and answer session with Ralph Rivera and Executive Editor of BBC Online, Roly Keating. The delegates raised some interesting points, and it was an informative & civilised session, with lots of important contacts made during the networking sessions as suppliers had the chance to mingle with around thirty members of the ten BBC Online teams.

 

Videos of the event will be posted on this blog throughout the week (update: links below), so you can see for yourself what the BBC Online team has in store for the future.

Kate Russell is presenter, BBC Click

External links that may be of interest:

• "Aunty squirts serendipity into TV apps" from The Register.
• "BBC to stream news site to Samsung tellies" from Reg Hardware.
• "BBC focused on dual screen iPad experience" from Pocket Lint.
• "APP OF THE DAY: BBC News (Samsung TV)" from Pocket Lint.
• "BBC's Rivera Era Is About Multi-Screenism" from paidContent UK.

BBC blog posts about BBC News for Connected TVs:

• Phil Fearnley, General Manager News & Knowledge, on the launch
• Steve Hermann, Editor of the BBC News website, at The Editor's Blog 
• Rob Hardy, team lead, about software design

Videos of the BBC Online Industry Briefing:

• Ralph Rivera's Keynote
• Holly's Goodier on "Changing Audience Behaviours"
• Daniel Danker on "The Evolution of iPlayer"
• Phil Fearnley and Sinead Rocks on the Knowledge and Learning Product
• Jane McCloskey, Chris Russell, Simon Lucy and Ralph Rivera on "New Ways of Working"
• Ralph Rivera and Roly Keating taking questions and offering answers

Other BBC blog posts you might have missed:

• Andy Conroy on Improving Partnerships
• Ralph Rivera on his keynote theme - "One Service, Ten Products, Four Screens" at the About the BBC blog
• Steve Bowbrick's round up of the Industry Briefing at the About the BBC blog

Updated July 6 with links to other blogs.