The BBC strives to be cutting edge in providing services to households throughout the United Kingdom. The broadcaster made the move to HD long before many broadcasters and is formulating its 3-D TV strategy. Danielle Nagler, the BBC’s head of 3-D and HD, discusses these areas.
VIA SATELLITE: What are the BBC’s plans for 3-D TV?
Nagler: We are certainly not looking at a channel launch. We are looking to explore two things. Firstly, what can be done creatively with 3-D, and how it can develop from what we have seen in cinema to the television we watch? Secondly, we are keen to explore what audiences think about 3-D, whether that is watching 3-D TV through their television or watching television programs made in 3-D. They are slightly different things. To explore these we will do a series of one-off projects. Some of those may be around events, and some of those maybe designed around program content and they will all complement the experimentation going on elsewhere. We want to explore the core areas of content that the BBC is involved in, and to really figure out what 3-D can add to what we do in 2-D for audiences.
VIA SATELLITE: How important is 3-D TV for the BBC?
Nagler: This may seem like we are sitting on the fence, but although this is an interesting development in television, it is quite early to take a definitive view on how mainstream it is going to become and what the timescale is going to be for 3-D TV. That is not a judgement on other forms of content that people may consume in 3-D outside of television content. On the whole, we are not in the movies or the gaming business, and therefore we are focusing on 3-D and television programs in terms of our consideration of the market. We, do of course, look at any kind of information and look at things to see whether they are relevant to the development of television. We can only really answer some of these questions by playing with 3-D and experimenting with it, which is what we are doing now.
VIA SATELLITE: Are you surprised by how some broadcasters have embraced 3-D TV?
Nagler: Those that are active in 3-D TV are active for a variety of reasons, which are not necessarily related to the number of 3-D TV’s sold and the number of people who actively watching or looking to watch 3-D TV content. Also, from a BBC perspective, we have quite a different position. We have to focus on the mainstream. In HD, we went in early, and we led its development in the United Kingdom, as it was proved to us that HD was going to be the future standard of television for broadcasting. Therefore, it was very relevant to all that we did, and it was important to us that we were actively involved and to make sure that higher-quality television was made available over time to everyone. I don’t think 3-D TV is in that category. I am not overly surprised at the activity we have seen. I think the numbers of people consuming 3-D TV services right now is still quite low, but I think it is great that a whole variety of players are getting involved in television innovation, and from our point of view, that is a much healthier television market in the United Kingdom than the BBC being the sole provider of R&D to the industry. We are always keen to work with others who are experimenting in 3-D TV. I don’t see it as a threat to what we are doing. I see it as a positive development.
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