BBC Three

Defining success in a connected content world is not straightforward. Is the buzz on social media more important than overnight ratings? And how does one commission shows that will play equally effectively on all devices across all platforms? 

Those were the main questions addressed in “Meet the new commissioners.” Session chair Jane Martinson, The Guardian’s head of media, asked some familiar faces with years of experience how the digital world is affecting their decisions. 

Reid is part of the main Top Gear line up, and is the only presenter to have been found through the show's open auditions.

Filmed at the Top Gear hangar, Extra Gear will deliver behind-the-scenes access, exclusive footage, interviews and specially recorded films to fans of the show.

The show will be available on BBC Three’s live page and on iPlayer immediately after Top Gear finishes on BBC Two.

Fleabag, played by Waller-Bridge, is a dry-witted, angry, grief-ridden, porn-watching young woman who is struggling to come to terms with a recent tragedy.

The bitingly hilarious show pulls no punches as Fleabag throws herself headlong into modern living. Sleeping with anyone who comes too close, rejecting all assistance and keeping up a cold front worthy of the Gulf Stream, Fleabag is thrown into the dog-eat-dog world of modern London.

Coal Hill School has been a regular site of alien activity since Doctor Who began in 1963, and all those years of time-travel have caused the barriers between time and space to start wearing dangerously thin, and something frightening is waiting on the other side.

This young adult drama is being created by young adult writer Patrick Ness, and will star The Night Manager, Happy Valley and Mr Selfridge actor Katherine Kelly as a Coal Hill teacher.

Anyone who tuned in for BBC Three’s final broadcast in the early hours of 16 February might have noticed the youth channel go out with a whimper, not a bang.

Not for BBC Three, any self-congratulatory run-down of the best commissions in its 13-year history. Instead, a repeat of Gavin & Stacey was followed by a trailer for new, online drama Thirteen and it all ended with a test card announcing that the channel had moved.

Perhaps the lack of fanfare was part of the brand’s emphatic declaration that it wasn’t closing, but moving.

Mark Linsey’s career in television has progressed from producing An Audience with Freddie Starr to the heady heights of running BBC Television. As Acting Director of Television – following the abrupt departure of Danny Cohen – Linsey finds himself playing a critical part as Charter renewal gathers pace.

Ask how an executive with 30 years in entertainment shows might play such a crucial role, and this safe pair of hands reaches for the word “distinctive”.

A host of new long- and short-form programmes will be released on the BBC Three website, iPlayer and across social media following the switchover on 16 February.

The online service will build on BBC Three’s reputation for original British comedy and though-provoking documentaries. It will also be a home for contemporary British drama, innovative entertainment and current affairs programming.

The news was announced in a blog post by Nikki Carr, the channel’s Head of Marketing, as she unveiled the brand’s new visual identity.

“BBC Three's logo hasn't changed in 8 years,” wrote Carr, “so in an age of smartphones we needed a whole new system that fits the digital world, not something analogue just shoehorned into it.”

With 30,000 homeless young people having been refused local housing by councils in the last year alone, according to Centrepoint, Manderson aims to look at the problems underlying the issue of  young homelessness in Sleeping Rough (working title).