BBC defends £20m online bill

BBC chairman, Sir Christopher Bland addressed the House of Commons Culture Committee yesterday to explain that the £20m of license-payers money used to set up BBC Online is money well spent.

Sir Bland told the committee that the BBC has to keep up with online exploitation.

Sir John Birt, the BBC's director general, described the site "as the best in the world," adding that there is no better way in finding out what is happening in the world.

A spokesman for the BBC commented that the select committee "encouraged us to get online," adding, "using 1 per cent of the budget is a small amount for a start up".

He explained that the site is getting 31 million page impressions a month and has doubled its user base in the past six months. He added that it allows users to interact with the BBC in ways they have never done before. "We are fulfilling the expectations of license-payers," he said.

Robin Duke-Woolley, principle analyst at Schema, said: "The BBC should be strongly defended." He explained that the Web extends internationally and will help with overseas marketing.

He said: "If they didn't have a Web site they would be seen as being behind the times. Although a smaller amount of the population have Web access, a high percentage that do are youngsters so this helps out with the education needs of kids in the UK."