The BBC has pledged to work more
closely with the UK's arts and science institutions to "make Britain the
greatest cultural force in the world".
BBC director general Tony Hall set out plans for the next decade, saying the corporation will become an "open BBC for the internet age".
A children's iPlayer and a pool of local reporters who will share work with local newspapers are also planned.
Yet he said funding cuts would mean the loss or reduction of some services.
Lord Hall laid out the plans at the Science Museum on Monday, ahead of the BBC's charter renewal in 2016.
Citing the importance of "excellence without arrogance", he said his plans did not signal "an expansionist BBC".
He
did warn, however, that funding cuts would mean it would "inevitably
have to either close or reduce some services", without specifying which
areas might be under threat.
New initiatives will include an Ideas Service, which Lord Hall said
would be an "open online platform" featuring material from galleries,
museums and universities as well as the corporation itself.
He
said: "Our new, open BBC will act as a curator bringing the best from
Britain's great cultural institutions and thinkers to everyone.
"Britain
has some of the greatest cultural forces in the world. We want to join
with them, working alongside them, to make Britain the greatest cultural
force in the world.
"We are extremely ambitious for this new service.
"Where
Google's mission is to organise the world's information, ours in a
smaller way would be to understand it. We will work with anyone who can
help us understand this ever more complex world."
A pool of reporters to provide
impartial reporting on councils and public services that could be used
by both the BBC and other local news outlets
A children's-only iPlayer - iPlay - featuring not just television programmes but blogs, podcasts, games and educational tools
Opening up iPlayer to "showcase" content from other broadcasters
New versions of BBC education, news and entertainment services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
"Significant investment" in the BBC
World Service, including a daily news programme for North Korea and more
broadcasts to Russia, India and the Middle East
A news service for Ethiopia and Eritrea on medium wave and short wave
A review of the BBC's website to make sure it is "distinctive with a stronger focus on online broadcast content"
New digital ways to help fans find new music or music from the BBC archive
The director general also said he wanted to enable "producers,
directors, writers, artists to have the creative freedom to do things
they would find it harder to do elsewhere".
Quality drama will
also be a priority, he said, and the BBC will make "bigger and bolder
series" that will be made available on the iPlayer in their entirety.
Physicist
and BBC presenter Professor Brian Cox also announced a science strand
named The New Age of Wonder, which will be part of the Ideas Service and
will be created in partnership with organisations like the Royal
Institution.
Analysis - BBC media correspondent David Sillito
"This
is not an expansionist BBC" is perhaps the key political line in
today's announcements. This is a response to the accusation that the
corporation is "imperial in its ambitions" made by Chancellor George
Osborne (along with several newspapers).
Partnerships with
cultural bodies, sharing news with local newspapers, opening up the
iPlayer to third party content - the mood music is all about
co-operation rather than competition.
The second theme can be seen
most clearly in the plans for bigger and bolder drama and giving people
the chance to "binge" watch. The BBC is in a global marketplace -
Netflix, Amazon, Google, Apple and HBO - the traditional media landscape
is being blown apart.
The BBC's problem is looking after its core
audience and responding to a technological transformation. It will
take money and the BBC has just taken a £650m cut. Those "tough
choices" mentioned in the speech is the theme that has not yet been
announced. Lord Hall described the recent agreement by the BBC
to cover the £600m cost of providing free television licences for
over-75s as a "tough deal" that would require "some very difficult
choices" to be made.
He said: "Having already saved 40% of the
BBC's revenues in this charter period, we must save close to another 20%
over the next five years."
Details of how those savings will be
made and which services might be under threat will be announced in the
coming months, he added.
In a charter review proposals document published on Monday, however, the BBC suggests that "some existing services" might no longer be needed in future.
"Streaming
news may replace rolling news," the document states. "Children may
prefer iPlay to scheduled television. The Ideas Service might mean we no
longer need BBC Four."
Later in the same document, though, the
BBC states "it is too early to be specific about the service changes
that we will need to make."
'Trojan horse'
The BBC's plans for "a network of 100 public service reporters across the country" did not find favour with the Scottish Newspaper Society, who labelled the proposal "a Trojan horse which will undermine long-established publications and destroy local news agencies".
"Instead
of helping local news publishers, it would make the BBC even more
powerful and would further concentrate coverage of news in the hands of
the state-funded broadcaster," said its director John McLellan.
The News Media Association,
which represents national, regional and local news media organisations
across the UK, expressed similar concerns, saying the corporation's
proposals represented "BBC expansion into local news provision and
recruitment of more BBC local journalists through the back door".
"The
local newspaper sector already employs thousands of journalists and is
the only reliable source of independent and trusted local news across
the UK," said its vice chairman Ashley Highfield. "There is no deficit
which the BBC needs to plug."
"Under the guise of being helpful, the BBC would end up replacing independent local news services," Mr McLellan told Radio 4's The World at One earlier, calling the plan "a further expansion of the BBC's encroachment".
Yet
this accusation was rejected by James Purnell, the BBC's director of
strategy, who told the same programme it was "very much not the goal"
for the BBC to "take over all local journalism".
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