BBC shifts focus to 'internet first' programme delivery

The BBC will be remodelled as an "internet-centric" broadcaster, as the web becomes the main way it reaches millions of British viewers, according to the executive given the "poisoned chalice" of leading the corporation's technological transformation.

In his first interview since becoming the BBC's chief technology officer in July last year, Matthew Postgate said the organisation was trying to adapt to younger audiences increasingly watching television and listening to radio over the web on mobile devices.

He said this required big changes in the way the corporation produced and delivered content in order to compete against the likes of Netflix and Amazon, internet companies that are encroaching on the territory of established broadcasters.

"It's my job over the next five years to put in place the production foundations to be internet first," he said, adding that media groups "are going to have to learn lessons if they're going to be in a position to compete with organisations that were born in the digital age".

But Mr Postgate's power to effect big changes at the BBC may be severely restrained, as he navigates a role that has become politicised and described by some commentators as a poisoned chalice.

In 2013, the BBC scrapped a £100m five-year technology project called the Digital Media Initiative, which was designed to give programme-makers full access to its archive. Tony Hall, the director-general, said it was "better to close it now rather than waste more money trying to develop it further", while the project received scathing criticism from a committee of MPs.

In the aftermath, John Linwood, the BBC's former chief technology officer, was suspended and then sacked, but last year he won a case of unfair dismissal against the corporation.

Mr Postgate said the organisation had learnt lessons, and there was no longer any desire "to do very large overarching, multiyear projects, but instead we're thinking about technology as a more agile and iterative process".

Mr Postgate, whose salary is £225,000 a year, is a long-time BBC executive who previously led its research and development arm and was part of the team that launched the BBC's iPlayer service.

A few months into the job, he has made a number of changes including creating a "business change" team to assist departments as they shift towards digital processes and renaming his department "BBC engineering", replacing "BBC technology".

"Engineering is something that you do, whereas technology is something that you buy," he explained.

Though accepting that the Digital Media Initiative project was a fiasco, Mr Postgate remains committed to the basic idea of moving the BBC's vast archive online and making the corporation tapeless.

As quietly and cheaply as possible, the BBC has made some of the changes desired by the DMI project. For instance, from this year, programmes are being produced using digital files rather recorded on to tapes. "Rather than trying to deliver one large project, we've been taking off the different components and moving forward," he said.

As the corporation prepares to negotiate its next royal charter after May's general election, with the future of the license fee up for debate, the BBC is desperate to show it can use new technology to make savings.

Part of the transformation is to deliver more programming online. Last year, the corporation said it would axe BBC Three, the youth-oriented channel which has been the home to comedies such as Gavin and Stacey and reality shows like Snog, Marry, Avoid?. Instead, BBC Three will be available online only, while its programme budget will be slashed from £55m to £30m.

Mr Postgate said this was more than a cost-cutting exercise and reflected how the BBC was responding to its audience's preferences. The BBC would continue to experiment with different ways to deliver programmes, he said, and certain channels and shows would make more sense being accessed over the web.

"I think the direction of travel for the BBC is that we need to make sure that our portfolio is relevant in the internet age," he says. "BBC Three was a brand that you could move from one platform to another relatively easily.

"The others you look at, something like Radio One, is already a brand that exists as much on other platforms as it does on FM [Radio] or [Digital Radio], whereas BBC One ultimately is almost the home of the national conversation and it's maybe suited to more broadcast-oriented technologies."

These trends will add to the strain on Britain's broadband networks, as video traffic takes up more internet bandwidth.

In the US, where Netflix accounts for as much as 35 per cent of internet traffic at peak times, the video streaming service has struck multimillion dollar deals with Comcast and Verizon, paying to ensure its movies and television shows are streamed smoothly across the broadband networks.

But Mr Postgate emphatically ruled out coining similar deals with the UK's largest broadband groups, such as BT and Virgin Media. "We pay in the model of the internet that's always been with us," he says.

Instead, he is focused on building the infrastructure required to provide new services. Mr Postgate said the corporation was likely to be screening programmes in "4K" - four times the resolution of current high-definition broadcasts - as standard by 2016.

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