Earlier this week in the press, BBC’s director of future media and technology Ashley Highfield got a verbal kicking from several quarters over what some say is an increasingly less innovative BBC. Clearly in response, at a conference yesterday, he defended his record: “The only thing that might stifle innovation would be the process of approving new services because that can take a long time. With BBC Trust approval framework for new services, we won’t always be able to be number one to market, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t or couldn’t be innovators.” He is notably (frustratedly?) pointing to the new regulatory regime that, since its creation in January, has closed down the BBC Jam site with the loss of 200 jobs, asked for consultation before the BBC repeats partnerships like that it inked with YouTube and finally approved its four-year-old iPlayer VOD proposal.
Meanwhile, as our sister site MocoNews reports, the BBC has appointed a new controller of mobile.