Mixed review for BBC Online and Red Button services

The Red Button serves over 17m people a week

A review of BBC Online and the Red Button service by the BBC Trust has found they are serving audiences well but there is room for improvement.

The report by the BBC's governing body found that the BBC Online service "is greatly valued and highly rated in terms of quality and distinctiveness".

But the Trust said BBC Online failed to hit its target of reaching 65% of the UK adult population by 2013/14.

The target was set in 2011. Since then, its audience reach has risen to 60%.

The Trust said this represented a "strong performance in a competitive market" and that the appreciation of BBC Online has been driven by News, Sport and the iPlayer.

A spokeswoman for the BBC Trust said the failure to reach audience targets did not affect the conclusions of the review.

"These targets were set by management, not by the BBC Trust, so they were not a material consideration for our review.

"We appreciate the Executive's transparency in telling us that they had failed to meet their own performance targets, but the trust does not require them to set such targets."

'Events coverage'

But the governing body also found that the local and regional news pages were "of a significantly poorer standard" compared with the UK and international news.

The Trust also said BBC Online's internal search engine did not meet audience's expectations - while the breadth of BBC online content was praised, they found it could be difficult to find relevant content.

The Trust has set out a number of actions to improve BBC Online, including improving navigation across the website and providing greater local services offered online.

The review found that BBC Online is on track to deliver its commitment to reduce spending by 25%, a target set in 2011.

BBC Online and Red Button are two of the most widely used BBC services. BBC Online reaches around 22m adults each week, while the Red Button reaches over 17m adults each week.

BBC Red Button consistently reaches more people each week than any other interactive TV service.

Due to the reduction in capacity on some digital TV platforms, the review found the Red Button "may struggle to meet audience expectations of providing extended events coverage on those platforms".

But the Trust is "confident it will remain an important service for licence fee payers."