Singapore – BBC Earth – the BBC Worldwide factual brand behind global blockbusters such as Planet Earth, Walking with Dinosaurs and Blue Planet – launched its new digital home on BBC.com. The stunning site captures BBC Earth’s passion for adventure and exploration bringing visitors a visual feast of incredible imagery, world class videos and stories that will offer fans a new perspective on the world.
From the depths of the ocean to the outer reaches of the universe visitors to the new section will be able to explore ten content strands including a mix of newly commissioned content as well as awe inspiring moments from the BBC’s Natural History Unit archives, which will be housed in the Amazing Moments section and will offer hundreds of clips, launching with 25, including Attack Of The Praying Mantis with new clips to be published daily. Other key strands include: Discoveries a section dedicated to uncovering fascinating stories such as Are Dolphins Cleverer Dogs, to Strange & Beautiful, which explores topics including The Twisted World of Sexual Organs to A Colourful Life, home to specially commissioned short films exploring the beauty of nature through colour. First to launch will be Life in White dedicated to the beauty of nature’s polar ice caps and nature’s use of the colour.
Matt Walker, former news editor at New Scientist and editor of BBC Food and BBC Nature, has taken up the reins as Editor working alongside a number of BBC Earth’s network of experts in science and nature.
Matt Walker, Editor for BBC Earth on BBC.com said, “BBC Earth offers a different perspective on the world and we want to celebrate all the wonders of the natural world from your back garden to the farthest star. We share a never ending curiosity with our audience and being digital allows us to interact more closely with them. We want people to share their own content with us and their network through social media and show us what inspires them. Our mission is to bring visitors to BBC Earth something amazing every single day and we have an incredible wealth of content to offer from mind bending stories to stunning photography and film that will change the way you think about our universe.”
Matt added, “Like our other non-news sections BBC Earth hopes to attract new visitors to BBC.com which is increasingly becoming the go to site for a wealth of new and topic led content.”
Jo Sermon, Director of BBC Earth commented, “The launch of BBC Earth on BBC.com is an opportunity for us to transform our relationship with audiences and give people a place to connect with our content beyond the television. Its home for the huge breadth and range of content that BBC Earth encompasses and we can be immediate in sharing new stories. Audiences will be able to explore their world and discover its wonders whenever and wherever they want and there will always be something new to excite them.”
“We are very much looking forward to the launch of BBC Earth on BBC.com in Asia. lt provides yet an added dimension to the brand, and perfectly complements our existing BBC Earth on BBC Knowledge programming strand which can be viewed every Thursday evening on the channel throughout Asia. We are confident that BBC Earth on BBC.com will allow our audiences to connect even deeper with the brand, inspiring and entertaining them at the same time,” said David Weiland, EVP, BBC Worldwide Asia.
BBC Earth builds on the existing portfolio of specialist sections BBC Autos, BBC Capital, BBC Culture, BBC Future and BBC Travel, commissioned for BBC.com. Each of these bespoke sections seeks to offer visitors to BBC.com a deeper understanding of the story behind the headlines, across a plethora of topics and from a wealth of specialists. To date the non-news sections have attracted an average of 6.8 million unique users contributing to the 76 million unique users BBC.com attracts on a monthly basis across mobile and desktop.