The panel seemed to have some trouble coming to terms with the title of this b.tween session as they don't think they come under the commissioner label, although seeing as they have money to spend on independent productions, they seem to qualify.

Jem Stone, an interactive executive at BBC New Media kicked off. To work with BBC you have to be on the preferred suppliers list, which you do by filling in a form. BBC content is increasingly user generated (a term generally disliked by speakers throughout the day) but his work with indies also includes Back Stage – a project which identifies new talent by supplying the development community with BBC data to create mash-ups, and also the BBC innovation labs. BBC very rarely commissions end to end ideas (new projects which stretch from concept to live services) but fund developments which integrate with in-house platforms.

The main things keeping the people of Channel 4 awake at night, according to Adam Gee, is distribution rather than content, video on demand and the promotion of the C4 website and as a destination site. At C4 the use of user generated content relates closely to talent development. Adam’s favourite C4 projects he commissioned:

What commissioners want:

Deliverables: be clear on what you are going to deliver, by when, for how much and what support do you need?

Compelling proposition with a good business case

cross platform ideas

read blogs, go to conferences and listen to what commissioners are asking for