After sixty years in radio and fifty years in television the BBC has made its debut into online broadcasting with the launch of BBC News on the Web (http://news.bbc.co.uk), a free continuous news service available over the internet. As well as a regular text style format the web site will include five minute audio and video clip news bulletins updated hourly, from the BBC World Service. The site which is staffed by a team of over 40 journalists and web experts, will receive stories from the BBC’s 2,000 global news staff and cover its own stories especially in the science and technology area. It will also broadcast the BBC’s Nine O’clock News program every night. The service which is costing 3m pounds a year to maintain will be funded by UK license fees said BBC officials at the launch. This Sunday BBC News will also announce the launch of its twenty four hour news channel. Initially it will only be available on digital cable but it will also run on Digital Satellite and Digital Terrestrial Television services when they are launched later next year. The content will also be made available on analog terrestrial BBC for people to watch over night.
