Interview: Ashley Highfield, Director, BBC Future Media & Technology: Trust Takes Too Long
By Robert Andrews - Mon 03 Sep 2007 10:00 PM PST
The BBC’s digital media supremo has said the broadcaster’s regulator should speed up the process for green-lighting new internet projects. In an in-depth interview to mark the launch of our newest site, paidContent:UK , director of future media and technology Ashley Highfield complained the corporation had been criticized for bringing its iPlayer TV catch-up software “late to market” because it was forced to go through a lengthy two-year approval process. He also revealed a Mac alternative to the P2P software, currently under development, will be premised on live video streaming and said ISPs threatening to throttle iPlayer bandwidth were being “disingenuous”.
- BBC Trust: Highfield said the BBC Trust took nine months to give this May’s go-ahead to iPlayer, which was first proposed in 2003: “The issue is the time it takes ... That’s a terribly long process. And we end up being criticized ... That does bother me because I think it’s important the BBC is an innovator ... My ideal would be to have the same level of rigor but to do it in a much shorter timeframe.” However, he acknowledged close scrutiny by the trust was necessary to ensure public value.
- iPlayer: He denied the BBC was “in the pocket of Bill Gates” over the application’s current Windows dependence, and revealed a Mac version - “our next major priority” - is now under development: “The peer-to-peer solution has got unique issues with the Mac platform because we can only give our programming away for seven days for free and that’s quite a difficult rule to implement, particularly to devices like the iPod, so we would be looking at a streaming solution for the Mac probably ... We always have to launch somewhere.”
- Bandwidth: Responding to complaints last month from Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse that iPlayer downloads will slow their networks: “I don’t really expect my internet service provider to turn around to me and say ‘ah yes, but we didn’t actually expect you to use that capacity and we didn’t really want you to download video’. I think that’s a bit disingenuous if any internet service providers start to turn around and say that to their customers.”
- Advertising: Highfield said attracting revenue from ads on bbc.com was a preferable alternative to making what would otherwise be cutbacks. To continue with “BBC 2.0”, a planned major overhaul of the corporation’s web presence, his division must “squeeze assets” and find “ever cleverer ways of cutting costs” because the U.K. government had not raised the license fee by as much as was needed. P2P, partner distributors and open-source developer communities will each be used to “drive efficiency savings”.
Much more in the transcript. Also, you can download the interview audio here (36 mins, 14.5 MB), or stream it below:
Posted in: Companies, BBCi, Countries, UK & Europe, Features, Interview Series
