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Q&A: Ashley Highfield, head of BBC's Future Media and Technology unit

On 'BBC 3.0' and why iPlayer criticism is unfair...
Written by Andy McCue, Contributor

On 'BBC 3.0' and why iPlayer criticism is unfair...

As head of the BBC's Future Media and Technology unit Ashley Highfield, one of this year's silicon.com Agenda Setters, is responsible for dragging the Beeb into the digital age through initiatives such as the iPlayer.

The launch of the iPlayer, however, hasn't been without controversy - attracting criticism for the delay in Mac and Linux versions and restrictive digital rights management (DRM).

In this exclusive interview with silicon.com, Highfield answers those iPlayer critics and talks about the future of DRM and 'web 3.0'.

silicon.com: Has criticism of the iPlayer, both around non-PC versions and DRM, been fair?
Highfield: No. It's understandable if we'd only ever intended to launch an XP-only iPlayer but that was never the plan. When we launch services we will always try to get to the largest part of that universe. The PC universe is the largest part of that. It was just the starting point. By Christmas we will have a streaming solution for Mac and Linux users. It was always part of our work plan but maybe we didn't communicate it fully or widely enough.

But you have said the BBC is still unable to commit to developing a download version for Mac users?
We do want to find a download solution, if at all possible, for Mac users. We do believe the next suite of Adobe Air products will enable us to offer a download solution for Macs and we believe that would be possible at some point during 2008. The point is, I'm not going to be able to commit to it until we've got our sticky mitts on it, tried it, tested it, worked out the cost implications.

Until we've got hold of the software and had conversations with Adobe it's just a case of not being able to commit to these things. And I think that's a better way around of doing it, rather than saying we're going to do something and then finding out we can't do it. I do believe we will be able to and I'm pretty certain at some point during 2008 we will have one but it's just not being able to formally commit now a timescale to it.

You've been seen lately showing off your brand new iPod Touch. Are you also personally a Mac user?
I am a deep lover of Macs. I have had one in the past. I got the iPod Touch in New York before they were here. I use a Sony Vaio on a day-to-day basis. I don't have a particular philosophy of manufacturers or solutions. I have a media centre sitting in front of me with the television above it and on it I have both the iTunes library and my Zune library. I love technology and I tend to go out and experiment and play with everything. I have an affinity with stuff that's just really well built, well designed and works well - not any particular manufacturer. I think the iPod Touch is a beautiful piece of design. If everything could have that intuitiveness of use… and certainly in terms of the BBC iPlayer, I aspire to it being that easy to use.

Criticism of the iPlayer has also centred on what many view as restrictive DRM, in that programmes are only available to view for a limited period?
The BBC is not wedded to DRM or any form of DRM. I'm not in bed with Beelzebub. It's a solution to a necessary evil. The rights' holders have been on a very long journey which we have led them on. It started three years ago when they didn't want anything longer than 30 seconds on a BBC website or the internet. They are paranoid that they will get ripped off and lose all of their revenues from DVD sales or from selling onto other TV networks.

I think in the world now we've got an ecology where almost all television and radio programmes are available free for a period of time. That, I think, is quite a good place to have got to but we are only halfway down the journey. I don't think there is anyone in my area of the BBC who wouldn't like to see us go much further so that the rights framework becomes much less restrictive and it becomes much easier to move, copy and share BBC content once you've downloaded it or once it's been streamed. That's the next phase of the journey, how do we now move forward, maybe even to a world beyond DRM?

How long will that journey to less restrictive and more user-friendly DRM take?
I wish I had the answer. I have just come back from a trip to the States where we saw a bunch of companies that are trying to develop what I think we could call an intelligent wrap around content. The wrap would have a set of rules as to how that content should behave wherever it appears. If that works then a piece of content like Top Gear that you can download in the first seven days and watch for free with no adverts. If you then decide to send it to a mate in America, when they came to watching it the wrap around the content would go 'ah I'm in America now' and could dynamically insert an advert into it because this is not public service now, this is part of bbc.com or BBC Worldwide.

And I think that idea of having intelligence in the metadata in the content to get us to a situation where we can be much more relaxed about how the content is distributed. Because if it ends up on YouTube more than seven days after transmission the rules could say 'ah, now I'm in a commercial environment. I'm now part of BBC Worldwide, I can now run adverts, I can maybe shrink the bitrate because I'm on YouTube, I might even cut the programme down'.

This technology is in its early stages. In the space of maybe two to five years we could see these solutions maybe replace the necessity for restrictive DRM. We are so trying to make this future come about. We are working with the technology partners making clear what our needs are and making it very clear to the rights holders the advantages of being more relaxed with their content - the advantages to them of having wider distribution through the likes of Facebook and YouTube.

There was speculation earlier this year about the BBC being in talks to develop a pan-broadcaster iPlayer under the codename 'Project Kangaroo'. What is the latest with that project?
What's in the public domain is correct. John Smith, the CEO of BBC Worldwide, stated that Worldwide are in conversation with the other public service broadcasters to assess the practicalities and commercial interests of getting together and launching a single point for being able to access video and audio in the UK. At the moment that's all we can say on it. No timeframes.

Interview continues on page 2

How will the recent BBC cuts affect the BBC's Future Media and Technology department?
We are meeting three per cent annual efficiency targets, which will mean over the next five-year period a reduction in headcount of, gross numbers, around 180 staff reduction. With redeployment and natural churn we imagine that's going to be somewhere between 120 to 130 net redundancies. A large amount of that - around 65 plus of those are effectively as a result of the implementation of a tapeless BBC - the digital media initiative - so the impact is going to fall on areas which currently deal a lot with tape, which we'll have far less of in the BBC by 2012.

We are going to be creating jobs as well though. Actually what is going to happen in Future Media and Technology in the short term is a rise in headcount to fulfil all the ambitious plans for Creative Futures.

And what about new funding for BBC Future Media and Technology?
Future Media and Technology is going to be receiving in the next financial year [2008/09] about £50m of new funding to help deliver all of its ambitious plans like my news now, web 2.0, the next release of iPlayer and so on and so on. Not all of that money is going on the audience-facing stuff. A fair proportion is going on internal deployment of technology. A lot of the new investment is going into creating a digital BBC - the advantage being that anyone would be able to access any content the BBC is making anywhere inside the BBC. The cost of actually making new programming and the costs of getting our programming out to our audience, particularly on IP and on-demand platforms, will fall. So I'm spending a disproportionate amount of money on the infrastructure and behind the scenes re-engineering of the BBC.

With web 2.0 hype still at its peak you recently talked about 'web 3.0'. What exactly do you mean by 'web 3.0'?
The 1.0 is the basic, the digitisation of your business and the BBC, like many media companies, has not even done that yet. I think that the internal digital media initiative is our web 1.0 or BBC 1.0. Web 2.0 is the BBC's move into having a much more personalised website where people can freely and easily post and exchange their views with each other. It's a BBC that has very rich media right across its web offerings - embedded video everywhere you look. That's our 2.0.

The world of 3.0 I think is when the BBC maybe really comes to the fore again. The semantic web, the intelligent web, is one where the technology only takes you so far and Google's search engine still provides you with 100,000 answers pretty much irrespective of who you are or where you are. The web 3.0 world puts a layer on top of that you could call editorial. It says this is probably what you were actually looking at. It says we the BBC know who you are. We've built up a good relationship with you through CRM. We know you were looking for a cop show from the '60s well here's a really good one that we know you - because we know something about you - will enjoy.

It's the next evolution of the internet and I think it's one where the BBC, by combining technology and editorialising, packaging, aggregating, scheduling, selecting - all of those skills that we've had over the last 80 years - can actually come to the fore again to help people through what has been described as the cacophony of choice or the paradox of choice.

What are the future challenges for the BBC as it moves towards a digital future?
I think we have a range of challenges. I think that the world is moving incredibly quickly, our audiences are expecting things to be on their terms, they are increasingly fickle and therefore the speed of change has got to increase. My concern is either we can't adapt as quickly as we need to or the regulatory environment makes it hard for us to innovate and implement as quickly as we need to. I think the increasingly global landscape and the fact we are predominantly a UK player is affecting all UK players. The BBC website is number three in the UK. The two companies above us - Google and MSN - and the two companies below us, Yahoo! and eBay, are all the American giants. How we can adapt to that and operate on a global scale while still being predominantly funded through the UK licence, that's an issue for us. But I think that we have a world-class team within Future Media and Technology so I hope we will be able to stay ahead of the curve.

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