• Research »
• CIO 100
  • White Papers
  • Tech Tool Kits
  • Analysis

• Home
• Company name
• Rank
• Industry
• Infrastructure
• Slideshow
• Archive

88. BBC

• Quarter: Q4 2009
• Screens: 3,750
• Employees: 22,874
• Head of IT: Tiffany Hall, Chief Technology Officer
• Industry: Leisure and entertainment
• Website: www.bbc.co.uk

The year of 2009 saw significant management change at the BBC with CIO Keith Little departing for a business transformation consultancy and Tiffany Hall taking on the role. A 14-year veteran at the Corporation and formerly at Shell, Hall is now responsible for IT infrastructure, security and support at the public service broadcaster and her appointment comes as part of CTO John Linwood's restructuring at the BBC's Broadcast and Enterprise Technology function in its Future Media & Technology Division. As part of that change programme, Hall will assume responsibility for a strategy designed to give technology suppliers more visibility of specifications to improve the tendering process.

With its iPlayer programming catch-up player now established as one of the UK's most dearly treasured web assets, the BBC late in the year moved to make it available on the BBC/ITV joint-venture Freesat service.

The move tallies with the Corporation's controversial desire to open up iPlayer and, in the words of director general Mark Thompson, "help secure the future of public service broadcasting in this country".

Another controversial move is Project Canvas, the scheme to the TV-over-broadband that in 2009 gained the support of Channel Five and is expected to go live in 2010. While supporters say it will give licence-payers better value, others suggest it is a pricey, anticompetitive manoeuvre. Pricey it certainly is: in November 2009, the Beeb said the cost for the first four years had swollen to over £115m.

A previous attempt to create a video-on-demand platform with commercial partners, Project Kangaroo, was blocked by the Competition Commission.

In November 2009, the BBC suffered an embarrassment when a laptop with scripts for its soap opera Eastenders was stolen.

Email this article to a friend or colleague:

---

Recipient's name *

Recipient's email *

Your name *

Captcha *

PLEASE NOTE: Your name is used only to let the recipient know who sent the story, and in case of transmission error. Both your name and the recipient's name and address will not be used for any other purpose.