BBC Cashes in on Overseas Ad Potential, Aims for Premium Advertisers

The BBC is set to commercialize its worldwide site by delivering ads to international visitors to BBC.com. With reportedly more than 40 million unique users accessing BBC content from outside the U.K. every month, it’s no surprise that the broadcaster is keen to capitalize on the opportunity.

Visible only to overseas visitors, the ads will initially be introduced on selected high-traffic pages such as news and sports and eventually rolled out across more of the site.

“Advertisers are seeing this as a unique opportunity to get involved with a premium international brand such as the BBC,” Kym Niblock, managing director of BBC.com, told ClickZ. “We have already had really positive feedback about the move, and there isn’t the same controversy surrounding it internationally as there is in the U.K. People don’t expect to receive content for free, and our research suggests that they are happy to ‘pay’ for it through advertising.”

How best to monetize the International operation has been under deliberation for some time now, with options including subscription and ad funding being considered. The latter approach was eventually approved by the BBC Trust last week. “We needed to offset the cost of international users accessing the content,” stated Niblock. “With the site expanding around 20 percent year-on-year and reaching in the region of 1.2 billion page impressions a month, we had to start looking at how to extract money from it.”

With regards to the ads themselves, the site will offer IAB standard display formats such as leaders and skyscrapers, as well as pre-roll ads on video news items. Sales for the site will be handled internally, with a 30- to 40-strong team to be split between the U.K. and the U.S. We can expect an announcement later this week as to who will be heading this up.

Although unable to reveal details as of yet, Niblock said a range of advertisers have expressed interest and suggested that some deals were very close to finalization. These included ads from the IT, technology, travel and luxury goods sectors. “We’re really trying to pitch the advertising at the premium end of the market,” stated Niblock, who added that targeting would begin with geographic and demographic options and expand to include more sophisticated factors down the line.

Concerns have been raised, particularly from U.K. license payers, surrounding the appropriateness of ad-funded online services. The BBC insists however that the introduction of advertising will not affect the quality or integrity of the site, and that a system of ‘robust editorial safeguards’ will be implemented to uphold the Corporation’s journalistic and editorial values. The move will apparently have a positive impact on U.K. license payers, with the revenue generated from the site being reinvested into journalism and new services, and ultimately saving them money.