BBC.com ads are threat to other media's expansion, says Guardian digital chief

The BBC's decision to put ads on its international website was an 'enormous state-funded intervention in the international news advertising market,' the Guardian's digital chief has said.

Emily Bell, head of digital content for Guardian News and Media, told the Online Publishers Association (OPA) London conference the BBC's introduction of ads to its international facing website BBC.com could impact upon on plans by other media to expand internationally.

"It will be interesting to see how the New York Times and everyone else reacts," she said.

"This is not our [The Guardian's] problem - this is everyone's problem."

During the same session Pete Clifton, head of editorial development for multimedia journalism at the BBC, said 47 per cent of the 17 million weekly unique users to the BBC News website came from outside of the UK.

Around half of these users, he added, were from the US.

The Guardian, Bell said, was actively seeking to expand its international audience and build on the success of Guardian America, which launched in October last year.

Guardian.co.uk drew a total of 18,703,811 unique users last month, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic (ABCe), nearly 11 million of which were from outside the UK.

The Guardian's online advertising partnership with Reuters that sees ads for Guardian.co.uk sold on Reuters' US site, "will make a big difference in our US business", Bell added.

In addition, Bell told Journalism.co.uk earlier this month that launching further international editions of CommentisFree was one consideration alongside a host of other possibilities for branching out internationally.

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