The BBC and TED have signed a deal on a month-long editorial collaboration. The team behind the recently launched BBC.com Future section explored TED’s extensive archive to curate 25 mind-expanding quotes that complement the core themes of the site: science, technology, environment and health.
Each TED Quote is presented with the full length TED Talk, spreading ideas from some of the world’s leading experts in science and technology. Topics covered include topics such as: Brian Cox, Why We Need The Explorers; Anthony Atala, Printing a human kidney; and Kevin Slavin, How Algorithms Shape Our World.
“When we launched BBC Future it was with a desire to offer users depth, insight, analysis and entertainment on universal themes,” Jonathan Fildes, BBC Future editor, said. “TED’s values mirror ours and we feel in joining forces we can offer audiences a unique and compelling proposition that reinforces BBC Future’s mission to be the leading place to explore the ideas and innovations that shape our lives and the world around us. We’re really looking forward to working with the team at TED”.
TED”s June Cohen said, “At TED, we’ve long admired the excellence of BBC’s journalism and the intelligence behind all of its online initiatives. We’re thrilled by this collaboration, which will share quotable moments from the TED stage with the BBC’s global audience.”
The TED Talks will be housed in a specially designed column on BBC Future and presented alongside the quote. Audiences will also be able to share the videos along with the eye catching headlines with friends via Facebook and Twitter. The first five sessions will be launched today with a further five Talks being published on a weekly basis throughout June.
Through this programme with BBC Future, TED is for the first time packaging and presenting its recently launched TED Quotes initiative with a global media partner. The purpose of TED Quotes is to provide audiences with a powerful new hook and gateway through which to experience a TED Talk.
BBC Future launched in March of this year and attracted an impressive 1.4 million unique users and 3.8 million page views within its first month, surpassing all expectations. The initial findings also revealed that articles on science and environment and technology were the most popular with science and environment dominating both the top five and top 10 most read articles.
Overseas visitors have also been encouraged to add their voice to the conversations via bespoke BBC Future Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture and Twitter https://twitter.com/bbc_future pages, both of which are also proving to be popular drivers to the site accounting for 5% of traffic to date. These platforms will also be integral in sharing the TED videos earmarked for BBC Future.
