BBC Launches iPlayer-Like Broadband Video Service Providing Coverage of Political Institutions

The BBC has launched an iPlayer-like broadband video service that provides live and on-demand coverage of Parliament and other British national political institutions, as well as of the European Parliament (note: the BBC says the service "will cover all proceedings in the main chambers of the House of Commons, House of Lords, Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly, Welsh Assembly and full sittings of the European Parliament" as well as "Westminster Hall and Select Committees at Westminster").

According to the corporation--which claims that "no other offer exists like this anywhere else in the world"--the service, dubbed Democracy Live (http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive), is designed to "provide unmediated content straight to the public" and features extensive guides, search facilities and easy navigation, in order to ensure that it "provides information for people with different levels of interest," thus fulfilling the corporation's commitment as a public service broadcaster to build better public understanding of the UK's democratic institutions. Unlike with the BBC iPlayer, its video content is not geo-restricted to UK residents. "Democracy Live is an important addition to the way the BBC brings politics to our audiences across the UK, allowing people to see first hand the work of their elected representatives and ensuring we have a healthy and informed democracy," Sue Inglish, the BBC's head of political programs, said in a prepared statement. "This is precisely the sort of different content the BBC should be providing in fulfilling our public service remit and representing all of the democratic institutions in the UK."

At the core of the Democracy Live home page is an eight-screen video mosaic, covering full sittings of the various institutions and committees tracked by the service. The service also features a "speech-to-text" search engine, which allows users to search its video archive for specific topics and contributors, and which supports Welsh as well as English. In addition to live and on-demand coverage, Democracy Live features a Historic Moments section, containing video of memorable political events from the past two decades; guides to each of the political institutions it follows, as well as an explanation of how the UK's political system works; and a comments section which brings together all the BBC's main political blogs and which the corporation says "offers a place for public figures to explore topical issues (note: the first UK political figure to contribute content is House of Commons speaker, John Bercow, who has composed an article exploring "what reform is needed to build the level of public trust in the House of Commons"). In addition, the service allows users to designate specific politicians in whom they are interested, and it then gathers video in which those politicians appear so that they can view it later.

According to the BBC, Democracy Live is produced from a newly built newsroom, together with the corporation's BBC Parliament digital channel. In addition, small teams of Democracy Live staff are located at each of the UK's national (i.e. Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh) legislatures.