BBC Coast Experience

I really like the BBC’s Coast series, which is currently on BBC2 and being trailed across the BBC network heavily.

The programme itself is interesting, but pretty standard. It’s the new media element which is really exciting though. They’ve created audio commentaries for twelve walks at coastal points across the UK, and these can be accessed by mobile phone as well as mp3 downloads. The mobile phone content is promoted through plaques at waypoints along the walk, which include a trial of wap barcodes as well as an SMS quiz for kids. All in all, it’s a big pan-BBC project, involving the Nations & Regions (the ‘where I live’ sites) and Open University.

The thing I like about the project most, though, is that it’s connected with ‘the real outdoors’. It’s a TV/new media experience whose call-to-action is for us to turn off our TVs/leave our computers and actually head out to enjoy our coastline. Completely uncommercial, very community-minded, and absolutely the kind of thing that the BBC should be doing.

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