The Gardeners' World Blog

Some of you will have read Roger's comments about the audience getting power and also seen reports of recent BBC announcements about the growth of user-generated content, and then wondered why we are therefore making changes to the 606 service.

I think it's fair to everyone - the few thousand people who actively contribute to 606 and the majority who don't - to try to explain more on this subject. I want to broaden the debate about what we should do and share as much with as many people as possible. This will hopefully also answer one important question people have asked on 606 and here. What is the real reason for change – cost-cutting or editorial quality or some other hidden factor?

This post is in three parts. Firstly I will quote from and discuss extensively BBC strategy documents, which I have linked to so you can go and make up your own mind. Secondly, I will describe in detail our main interactive World Cup features. Thirdly I will discuss a few ideas which we could do next season with 606 and other sport communities. This is in the hope that you comment on them and help decide which to go ahead with.

Paul Armstrong, Match of the Day editor, will be posting regularly on our World Cup blog. Before he left for Germany he wanted to expand on some of the points raised by the Ian Wright "diving" controversy last week.

"In my initial response, I said that 'our audience is perfectly capable of making up their own mind whether they agree or disagree' with Ian.

"Judging by the response, I got that right, if nothing else! We do take on board all the comments and have in fact had our own internal debate about what is a ticklish subject.

"Most of us here would like to see no diving whatsoever during the World Cup, but we will not be censoring - or indeed censuring - our pundits if, as Ian did, they express an opinion during a live broadcast which is not universally popular.