Kevin Bakhurst, the controller of BBC News 24, announced recently that the BBC is to produce a programme inspired entirely by user-generated material sent by the public.

the programme, which started on November 25th and will run throughout December, will take advantage of the 10,000 emails their news website – according to the BBC – receives every day.

so does this mark a milestone in the adoption by the emerged mainstream media of user-generated content, or is it a naive attempt by the corporation to jump on the UG bandwagon?

the challenge for the emerged media is not whether or not they acknowledge the existence and increased predominance of user-generated content …but how.  the emerged media brands must decide what their relationship with this emergent world will be.  will they be the publisher? the facilitator? the encourager? or the aggregator?  or will they decide that this new world is not for them and they relationship is one of polite separatism.

so whether the move is a milestone for UGC, or naive bandwagoning, isn’t as important as the fact that the BBC has taken a stand either way.