The new BBC3: Raw, but hardly crunchy
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Your support makes all the difference.Four months after its first proposal was rejected, the BBC has come up with a replacement for BBC Choice, the digital youth channel criticised for concentrating on celebrity gossip and trash culture.
BBC3 has been revised after Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, dismissed the initial offer for lack of distinctiveness. Among conditions she set were that 80 per cent of programming must be specially commissioned, and that the channel must use new, untried talent.
Those possible handicaps were presented as strengths yesterday at a press launch in which the words "raw and fresh" (but not their natural corollary, "crunchy") featured. Other adjectives used by Stuart Murphy, the channel's controller, included "innovative", "challenging" and "relevant".
Behind these bold new schedules lurks the theory that a generation – those now in the 25 to 34 age bracket – has grown up accustomed to much greater freedom of choice; sadly, their choice has not included BBC Choice, or any other BBC channels. It is the aim of BBC3 to "reconnect" these viewers with the BBC and its public service ethos.
On the whole it sounds far more attractive than the lowest-common-denominator approach of BBC Choice.
On the schedule
The News Show: Connecting to the 25-34 audience by having split screens and presenters who stand up.
Burn It: Raw drama series on three lads turning 30 and facing up to responsibility.
Celebdaq: Interactive show in which viewers trade shares in celebrities. Dividends paid according to press coverage.
Body Hits: Documentary examining the process of getting drunk and having a hangover.
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