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The DEEPEND project is a collaborative effort to study the societal value of biodiversity in the deep-sea. Marine organisms are a promising resource for useful natural products such as medicines. The potential use of biodiversity - or marine genetic resources (MGR) - has yet to be thoroughly explored in the deep sea. These organisms offer the exciting potential discovery of new gene clusters that direct the formation of enzymes and small molecules. These could have useful biotechnological and pharmaceutical applications, including the discovery of novel antibiotics, coming at a time when society faces an antimicrobial resistance crisis. Marine sponges are known to be important sources of novel natural products, yet the identification of sponge taxa (many of which are new to science) requires specialist taxonomic expertise. DEEPEND was initiated in 2022 with an 8-month pilot project with an extension to the project being granted for a further 12 months, bringing the project to a close on the 31st of March 2024. As part of the extension funding, it was recognised that the team lacked expertise in sponge identification, despite this taxon being of utmost importance in biodiscovery. This workshop aims to go some way towards remedying this by providing some trusted identifications for taxa currently under study, and improving the identification of abyssal sponge taxa currently held in the Discovery Collections at NOC, which largely originate from the Porcupine Abyssal Plain, Whittard Canyon, Mid Atlantic Ridge and Haig Fras areas in the North Atlantic, and also selected specimens from the Central Pacific in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (SMARTEX Project).

This thesis examines the developing role of television channels in the delivery of public service broadcasting in Britain, 1996-2002. Starting from a hypothesis that channels are distinct television products in their own right and increasingly important in organising how broadcasters think about their audiences, it argues that channels have identities expressed through their schedules and determined by their relationship to genre and target audience. Based on research at the BBC (from 1998 - 2002), involving interviews with key staff and the analysis of BBC documents, this study examines the television broadcasting functions of commissioning, scheduling, marketing and audience research. It illustrates how these activities created specific identities for television channels and how these identities shaped the programming that reached television screens. It reveals how channels became increasingly important in the television landscape as buyers in a more demand-led commissioning economy and acted as a focus for the creation of media brands. It then discusses how the evolution of a channel portfolio enabled each channel to play a specific role in fulfilling public service obligations and looks at how different models of audience emerged in relation to the different public service television channels, charting the decline of the mass audience and the emergence of the visualisation of audiences in a more individualised way. The thesis concludes by addressing some implications of these developments. It looks at how the different models of audience in circulation affect debates about quality television, and how changing ideas about the construction of public service channels may impact on the regulation of broadcasting. Finally, it explores the effect of multiple channels, each targeted at specific audiences, on the concept of a unitary public sphere and speculates that channels have the potential to underpin the creation of multiple imagined communities.

This thesis examines the developing role of television channels in the delivery of public service broadcasting in Britain, 1996-2002. Starting from a hypothesis that channels are distinct television products in their own right and increasingly important in organising how broadcasters think about their audiences, it argues that channels have identities expressed through their schedules and determined by their relationship to genre and target audience. Based on research at the BBC (from 1998 - 2002), involving interviews with key staff and the analysis of BBC documents, this study examines the television broadcasting functions of commissioning, scheduling, marketing and audience research. It illustrates how these activities created specific identities for television channels and how these identities shaped the programming that reached television screens. It reveals how channels became increasingly important in the television landscape as buyers in a more demand-led commissioning economy and acted as a focus for the creation of media brands. It then discusses how the evolution of a channel portfolio enabled each channel to play a specific role in fulfilling public service obligations and looks at how different models of audience emerged in relation to the different public service television channels, charting the decline of the mass audience and the emergence of the visualisation of audiences in a more individualised way. The thesis concludes by addressing some implications of these developments. It looks at how the different models of audience in circulation affect debates about quality television, and how changing ideas about the construction of public service channels may impact on the regulation of broadcasting. Finally, it explores the effect of multiple channels, each targeted at specific audiences, on the concept of a unitary public sphere and speculates that channels have the potential to underpin the creation of multiple imagined communities.

This thesis examines the developing role of television channels in the delivery of public service broadcasting in Britain, 1996-2002. Starting from a hypothesis that channels are distinct television products in their own right and increasingly important in organising how broadcasters think about their audiences, it argues that channels have identities expressed through their schedules and determined by their relationship to genre and target audience. Based on research at the BBC (from 1998 - 2002), involving interviews with key staff and the analysis of BBC documents, this study examines the television broadcasting functions of commissioning, scheduling, marketing and audience research. It illustrates how these activities created specific identities for television channels and how these identities shaped the programming that reached television screens. It reveals how channels became increasingly important in the television landscape as buyers in a more demand-led commissioning economy and acted as a focus for the creation of media brands. It then discusses how the evolution of a channel portfolio enabled each channel to play a specific role in fulfilling public service obligations and looks at how different models of audience emerged in relation to the different public service television channels, charting the decline of the mass audience and the emergence of the visualisation of audiences in a more individualised way. The thesis concludes by addressing some implications of these developments. It looks at how the different models of audience in circulation affect debates about quality television, and how changing ideas about the construction of public service channels may impact on the regulation of broadcasting. Finally, it explores the effect of multiple channels, each targeted at specific audiences, on the concept of a unitary public sphere and speculates that channels have the potential to underpin the creation of multiple imagined communities.