The BBC have a history of innovation in technology, as well as involvement in education (via the worlds first online university, the Open University). Not surprisingly, they have an excellent WWW server, to be found at http://www.bbcnc.org.uk/.
The BBC broadcasts worldwide, as well as selling its television and radio programs, and ancilliary books, to other agencies around the world. Thus use of the world wide Internet and WWW to disseminate information about these services provides very valuble exposure.
The top page shown in 7.6 has a limited number of GIFs, as many of their clients will be accessing it over dialup lines. It is a clear index to the rest of their service, as well as containing an identifying logo, which is visible on most of their authored pages.
The BBC's online services are then listed on the next page 7.7.
Figure 7.7: BBC Information Services
A TV company also publishes in other media. The BBC publish quite a few books and magazines to compliment there television and radio programs. For example, there are cookery books and children's story books, as well as transcripts of the programs themselves.
7.8. shows a page about a magazine that accompanies their programs about cars and driving, which illustrates the use of graphics and audio to good effect.
Figure 7.8: Top Gear Magazine's Front Page
As part of a driving interest, the online version allows you to retrieve the sound of some loud and fast cars in action as in 7.9
Figure 7.9: Sounds of Cars on the Web
Of course, the BBC's main business is broadcasting. They have information about what programs are on their radio and TV stations world wide, and even transcripts of some of the programs in the following pages, as can be seen in 7.10 and 7.11. The latter shows the advantage of online information over print - it can be presented in a variety of ways - you can retrieve the program listings by subject or by time.
Figure 7.10: BBC 5 TV and Radio top level
Figure 7.11: BBC 6 programs categorized by type
The BBC operates worldwide, which means it spans many timezones. In 7.12, they show the footprint of a satellite for world service TV over Africa. They also have pages that allow you to search maps for program times and frequencies.
Figure 7.12: BBC African Footprint
Any large corporation needs to educate customers and new employees about its history - some of the BBC's can be seen in 7.13.
The BBC operates a networking club. One of the most imaginative things this was used for in 1994 was an Advent Calendar.
Figure 7.14: The BBC'S 1994 Advent Calendar
In 7.14, you can see the calendar. Each GIF for a day is
actually a pointer to further information. For example,
7.15 shows a history of Santa Claus which someone else on
the network provided.
.
Figure 7.15: A History of Santa Claus
