BBC commissions online drama

In Media Guardian (free registration required), Mark Sweeney reports on the BBC's plans to take drama online.

The BBC has commissioned Endemol to create an ambitious interactive online show that aims to tap the youth audience that is increasingly turning away from TV.

Ashley Highfield, the BBC's director of future media and technology, described the show, to be called Signs of Life, as the BBC's "most ambitious internet format to date".

Speaking at the Broadcasting Press Guild lunch he said, "The internet is a new creative medium but original content ideas are still thin on the ground."

He added that the £800,000 budget for the series, which consists of eight 20-minute episodes, is a comparable budget to a typical TV drama.