Broadband takes BBC into new territory

Changes in delivery of TV and radio programmes will mean new challenges for advertisers, says the BBC's Ashley Highfield.

The internet is on the cusp of "web 2.0" - or at least it is if the BBC has anything to say about it.

The British television network is drawing much attention these days for its innovative approach to interactive TV and internet content.

Offering television programmes for downloading, among other things, has garnered Ashley Highfield - director of new media and technology and the man behind the drive to interactive TV and internet content on bbc.co.uk - some impressive accolades from the tech industry.

In 2003, Highfield was awarded the Digital Innovator internet award by the Sunday Times. In 2004 he was named "most influential individual in technology" by online technology news website Silicon.com. This year he was named third on Silicon.com's list of the Top 50 Agenda Setters, in good company with Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and Apple Computer's Steve Jobs, in first and second place respectively.

The accolades are probably inspired by results - during Highfield's five-year tenure with the BBC, the number of British adults visiting bbc.co.uk has nearly quadrupled, from 4.6 million to 16 million monthly users.

Highfield, who also works with the BBC's creative research and development team and is a member of the network's executive board, was in New Zealand over the past few days, spreading his message about how the online environment is changing.

"For the past five years we've been living in a narrowband world", he says. "What we try to do [at the BBC] is broaden the appeal from being primarily a news source. The purpose of the BBC is to inform, educate and entertain and we try to do all three of those on the web."

The next shift, he says, is towards the internet as an entertainment or broader content medium rather than a communication medium.

With broadband access taking off in Britain over the past year or so, Highfield says there has been an exponential increase in the amount of video and audio offered by the BBC's website,

"It is exploding, and for me that represents a social shift. As we start to make decent radio and television programmes available online, the consumption is about to rocket. We're about to enter web 2.0 and that's a significant shift."

Highfield says the BBC is trying to innovate on behalf of the wider industry. To that end, the organisation is trialling an integrated media player, which offers British residents the ability to download any of its TV programmes broadcast in the past week to a PC.

"We can take these risks on behalf of the industry and it's a very privileged position. But if we can solve the issues around digital rights management and find ways of reducing distribution costs by using legitimate peer-to-peer networks, then everyone wins."

Changes in delivery of TV and radio programmes will present new challenges for advertisers, he says.

"Once you can watch TV on your terms, it's not just a case of skipping through the adverts. Technology will find a way," he says. "When we hire a DVD, we can't skip the adverts, for example. The more significant shift will be in who we get our television programmes from. The power is going to shift, and suddenly the new gatekeepers will be able to take a lot of ad dollars."

Viewers may actually come to appreciate ads, he says, because they'll be more relevant and timely.

"The great thing about delivering television programmes through IP is that you know who the audience is. You know so much more about them. Therefore the cost per thousand on an ad is going to skyrocket because you're going to be able to deliver, without adding wasted frequency, exact adverts to an exact audience."

Ashley Highfield

* Who: BBC director of new media and technology.

* Favourite gadget: "I just received my new video iPod in black. With gadgets, favourite equals newest."

* Next big thing in technology: Wireless. "We're just on the edge of wi-fi. WiMax is going to change a lot of businesses."

* Alternative career: Formula One driver.

* Spare time: "Over the past year I've been organising getting married. Before that, I raced cars for a hobby."

* Favourite science-fiction film: "It's either Terminator 2 or The Matrix."