Provision of Push Notification Services

The BBC sought to contract for the provision of push notification services. The BBC currently uses a third party to provide these services for its News, Sport, iPlayer, Sounds, Bitesize and Children's apps.

BBC News currently issues approximately 5 high priority breaking new alerts per day to both signed in and non-signed in users. Users who are signed in are required to opt in for editorially managed topics, for example breaking stories from technology or politics. The service must be able to support both signed in e.g., targeted topic-based notifications and non-signed in e.g., breaking news notifications.

BBC Sport app is a signed in experience. Sport currently sends three types of notifications:

- Automated notifications on specific topics, such as kick offs for a particular football team and goal alerts

- Breaking news for editorially managed topics, for example Olympics

- Live event reminders

BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds both offer a signed in experience, and send the following notification types:

- Automated next episode notifications for programmes that users are following

- Recommendation notifications for suggested programmes based on the users watching or listening history

BBC Bitesize offer both signed in and signed out experiences. For signed in users, notifications are sent based on a user's activity e.g., when a user does not complete a study guide. For signed out users, reminders are sent when new content is available.

BBC Childrens apps all offer a signed-out experience, and send notifications based on the user's activity in the app, e.g., collecting badges

Other BBC apps are expected to use the service and integrate over time, e.g., BBC Weather, more childrens apps.