Inspired by the BBM formula and by work of G. Leoni and D. Spector, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of two sequences of convex nonlocal functionals (Psi(n)(u)) and (Phi(n)(u)) which converge formally to the BV-norm of u. We show that pointwise convergence when u is not smooth can be delicate; by contrast, Gamma-convergence to the BV-norm is a robust and very useful mode of convergence. (c) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.