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BBC rebuts Guardian chief’s claim that it monopolises digital at expense of commercial news brands

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By John Glenday, Reporter

October 24, 2014 | 2 min read

The BBC has moved to refute claims made by Guardian chief executive Andrew Miller, who yesterday claimed that the broadcaster's expanding digital operations came at the expense of ‘commercial news brands of all shapes and sizes’.

Dismissing suggestions that the BBC News website had become too dominant the broadcaster pointed out that its news website accounted for just 1 per cent of all time spent online in the UK.

A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC’s commercial operations overseas are not funded by the licence fee and we are happy to compete on an equal footing with all other news providers.

“Independent research shows that the BBC’s global activities bring an economic return to the wider UK. The BBC does not stop other news providers being successful, and we already provide footage of events to news providers in the UK on a case by case basis."

The corporation went on to point out that the UK has some of the most successful news providers in the world – not least the Guardian which has one of the top three global newspaper websites by audience size.

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