The BBC Three Thing. Again.

TV You already know my feelings on the whole BBC Three debacle and so you probably will have guessed how I reacted to today's news that the BBC Trust have agreed to allow the show to leave television and go online which is still on television for a large proportion of the country as Damian Kavanagh, Controller, BBC Three describes:

"BBC Three is not closing, we are reinventing online. We will not be a scheduled 7pm to 4am linear broadcast TV channel but we will be everywhere else giving you the freedom to choose what to watch when you want. We will be available on BBC iPlayer on connected TV’s and via set top boxes and consoles like the PS4 so you can watch on a big TV with friends, if you want. We will be on mobiles and tablets so you can watch on your own in the bath, if you want. The truth is we will be available to you in more places than ever before including linear TV. All our shows will be on BBC One or BBC Two so you can watch on traditional TV, if you want."

As is so often the case, at a certain point in the not too distant future this whole business will look very strange. Within about ten years although some form of linear television will still exist, the rump of viewing will be on catch-up and people won't even really see channels as anything more than brands and before long it'll be genres, genres and micro-genres. Some already don't. A friend online says he doesn't even know which channel a documentary was originally broadcast half the time and now the old presenter structures have broken down* I can see what they mean.