Broadcast Magazine – 22 August 2019

32 | Broadcast | 23 August 2019 broadcastnow.co.uk

The channel’s controller talks to Max Goldbart about shifting its focus to a narrower age

range, her fresh slate of fact-ent formats and taking commissioning cues from social media

FIONA CAMPBELL BBC3

C4’s Leeds HQ will feel like a proper channel. There

won’t be anything like it anywhere else in the industry

KELLY WEBB-LAMBINTERVIEWP36

Changing direction at BBC
3

F

IONA CAMPBELL has one
of the hardest jobs in TV. At a
time when the BBC is being
lambasted from all sides for not doing
enough to retain those coveted 16-34s,
she is tasked with running the corpo-
ration’s youth-skewing channel.
MPs, regulators and producers
alike have put the BBC under pres-
sure over the issue in the past year

• and they may have a case. BBC3,
  which has a remit to reach young
  viewers, in fact reaches less than a
  tenth (8%) of 16-34s per week, and
  this fi gure has remained fl at for the
  past two years. Its budget was
  boosted by £10m to £40m in 2018,
  yet this represents less than 3%
  of the overall BBC content budget
  (see box, right).
  How to deliver growth with limited
  means is the challenge facing Campbell,
  and her response is a data-driven
  commissioning approach, which aims
  to make shows representing all
  corners of the UK, while attempting
  to develop a family of iconic BBC3
  brands to rival those of yesteryear.

News background
As a former BBC News employee (fi rst
as controller of mobile and online then
digital director), Campbell accepts
there may have been some raised eye-
brows when her name emerged from
the list of potential successors to the
popular Damian Kavanagh at the start
of 2019. “Some people who didn’t
know me thought, ‘She used to work
in news; that’s a bit weird’,” she says.
But as the former acting head of
BBC3’s factual output and an experi-
enced documentary producer, she
makes a compelling case for her suita-
bility during an hour-long Television
Centre sit-down. “People who know
me know that I think a lot about
stories and can be quite populist in
my touch,” she says.
“The most interesting part of my
role at BBC News was working with
third-party platforms – I now think
about content in a totally different
way. There aren’t many people in the

market who are programme-makers

with 20 years experience and who

have also negotiated with Facebook

and Instagram. I’ve sat in meetings

with Apple in Cupertino and that

gives me a unique insight.”

Thanks to her time at the BBC’s news

operation, Campbell is obsessed with

data and spends hours poring over

BBC iPlayer and social media fi gures

to inform her commissioning deci-

sions and general strategy.

She has struck up a close relation-

ship with the BBC’s audiences and

digital team and is working side-

by-side with them to “defi ne what

the BBC3 value is” and how she can

“make that clear, and really double

down on it”.

Factored into every conversation

is iPlayer, which Ofcom has just given

the green light to host shows for

12 months. “All I say in meetings is,

‘how will this work on iPlayer?’”

says Campbell. “This is how my brain

works. BBC3 now has the third row

on the iPlayer front page and that is

extremely valuable real estate.”

Fleabag: the comedy drama

was a breakout hit for BBC3

There are a

hell of a lot

of under-

35s out there

and you can’t

reach them all

at once, so we

should creatively

lean towards

under-25s

enough to retain those coveted 16-34s,