BBC Red Button

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BBC Red Button (formerly BBCi and BBCText) is an "on-demand" service, standard to all digital television installations in the United Kingdom. Its goal is to act as a bridge between the BBC's televisual and web content. Ultimately, their biggest relevance to Doctor Who may be that their employees create the official websites for Doctor Who universe programmes.

Overview

It derives its name from the fact that viewers access it by pushing a literal red button on their remote control. This action then drops down a menu in a box over the programme one is watching, allowing a viewer to pick from a variety of different "channels". Some of these channels are text-based and generally remain displayed over the main programme one is watching. Some are video based and can be optionally viewed as a picture-in-picture display, or simply chosen as a regular, full-screen channel would be.

The term "Red Button" is somewhat imprecise, however, as it refers to two things. It is both the result of pressing the button — what is somewhat imprecisely called the "Red Button channel" — and the department of the BBC in charge of managing the BBC "brand" across all digital platforms. Adding to this confusion is the fact that the term "BBCi" was only slowly phased out. Until 2008, it was still possible to find new content on BBC websites referring to BBCi, creating the illusion that "Red Button" only applied to digital television. Even as late as 1 April 2010, archived stories with the term "BBCi" were being used to help explain it all to customers.

Relationship to Doctor Who

Historically, Red Button and its predecessors have generated the most content in relation to sports, news, business and other non-fictional programming. However, the BBC have occasionally used both the broadband and interactive television capabilities of Red Button to add to their viewers' enjoyment of Doctor Who.

Video content has been arguably the most important to Doctor Who, in that several events have debuted on the service. Scream of the Shalka was a sort of "test case" for the platform, in that it was created by the then-BBCi to a standard that could have been broadcast via the Red Button of the day. Ultimately, however, it received a web-only debut. Similarly, the animation of episodes 1 and 4 of The Invasion was originally a project paid for by BBCi for what is now called the iPlayer, Red Button's web-based on-demand video player.

The BBC Wales version of the programme has taken more advantage of the Red Button itself, generally offering original programming during the Christmas season. Attack of the Graske was the first major piece of Doctor Who programming available on Red Button. Its 4:3 aspect ratio reveals the age of the piece, as Red Button adopted a widescreen ratio after its parent networks did. In 2007, a Cardiff concert of music from Doctor Who was exclusively premiered on Red Button. 2008 brought Dreamland to the Button.

The Red Button has also been used as a market tool to braodcast clips from upcoming episodes, such as when on 24th March 2010 they showed the first scene from The Eleventh Hour

External link

• BBC Statement of Future Media policy, the effective "job descriptions' of Red Button and Online