iPlayer

Product: iPlayer

People behind it:
Name: Ashley Highfield (right), Erik Huggers, Anthony Rose

Ashley Highfield, BBC director of future media and technology and a member of the executive board, is often portrayed as the man behind iPlayer, the BBC’s video streaming and downloading service. But it’s fairer to say it was a team effort; while we can’t name-check the entire team, Highfield’s deputy, Erik Huggers, and Anthony Rose, head of digital media technology, were instrumental in its development and launch. Highfield is leaving the BBC to head Kangaroo, a joint-venture video-on-demand platform from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. Huggers is tipped as his successor.

 

How innovative?
Some critics say that with the £78m budget that the BBC team had, anyone could have succeeded with the iPlayer. They also suggest the service is limited in its abilities and in its offerings. But the truth is, it is hugely successful, and it represents a seismic shift for the BBC, away from the old-style Reithian “Auntie knows best” approach to a much more consumerfocused and consumer-controlled cross-media operation.

Market success
The BBC iPlayer was a late entrant into the UK’s growing list of video streaming and download platforms, and is still not without its teething problems. But, with its full launch only happening at Christmas 2007, the BBC says that in the first three months of the year, it has had over 42 million requests to view programmes – with a big boost, no doubt, from the April Fool’s Day flying penguins video.

How it fits
The iPlayer may not be the most advanced technology, and it may be the fruit of what some claim is too close a relationship between the BBC and Microsoft (Huggers is ex- MSN), but it works and consumers are happy with it. It also turns TV into something that happens in the present and future from something that happened in the past – “did you see?” – and converts viewers into evangelists – “you must see!”