BBC strikes YouTube deal

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If you’re getting tired of grainy YouTube footage of fat kids with lightsabers and just-married couples burning up the dancefloor, you could soon be watching Songs of Praise and other Beeb classics through three channels instead.

OK, so it’s more likely to be Doctor Who and Life On Mars , but in a move reminiscent of your dad getting on down to The Killers, Auntie Beeb has just struck a deal with YouTube to provide ad-free clips of news and promotional content linked to its most popular shows.

The ever-more-commercially-viable website will feature self-contained clips, between three to six minutes long, from BBC Worldwide, available to UK viewers and supported by banner ads. BBC News will show around 30 clips a day, although this channel inexplicably won’t be available to UK users.

The Beeb is keen to broaden its audience and it’s hoped that hopping on to YouTube will help generate new revenue. How the corporation’s latest move will be received by other media companies who aren’t supported by public funding and the punters who pay the licence fee remains to be seen…

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Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website. Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.