The BBC’s director of policy has defended the planned closure of BBC3, insisting it was a creative opportunity to “blaze a trail” digitally. James Heath told the Voice of the Listener and Viewer autumn conference on Tuesday in London that the move would be a chance for the corporation to renew the youth-oriented channel as a “Web native” product and offer new forms of interactivity to viewers. He likened the proposed transition to online-only as another form of innovation that the BBC had demonstrated with the iPlayer.