Why don the BBC come clean and admit its simply cost cutting measure?
There is no intention to spend less on community/participatory services, although we do definitely want to cut the “cost-per-user” figure by offering services which work on a bigger scale and have wider appeal than message boards. I think there’s some inconsistency in your figures in as much as you quote 150K people rating as more than five times those posting on 606 but elsewhere wave around figures of 250K users on 606. For every service of this kind there are people who contribute and people who just look at the results of their contributions. 606 has been getting about 250,000 people looking every week but no more than 20,000 contributing. The FA Cup final ratings saw 150,000 contribute and more people on the web looking than ever look 606 – plus the massive TV audience.
