Ashley Highfield To Lead "Kangaroo"
| 11:00 AM, Monday, 14 April 2008
Ashley Highfield is leaving BBC Future Media and Technology to lead Project Kangaroo.
Ashley is in Las Vegas for an event so will probably be asleep now, but I hope to have a post from him as soon as possible.
In the meantime, here's the press release explaining more. I'll be putting any reaction from blogs in our del.icio.us stream.
Here is the text of the email sent by the BBC's Director General Mark Thompson to all BBC staff today:
Dear All,
I am delighted to tell you that Ashley Highfield, Director of Future Media & Technology, is to become CEO of Kangaroo, the video-on-demand joint venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4.
I'm sure you will join me in congratulating Ashley in taking up this fantastic opportunity to oversee the launch of an exciting new venture which is an important part of BBC Worldwide’s future commercial plans.
At the same time, I'd like to express my thanks to him for all the great work that he has done since he joined the BBC in 2000. He has been pivotal in transforming the BBC for the digital age and a champion on the Executive Board for investment in technology. As a result of his leadership, the BBC is being re-engineered and successfully positioned to take on the enormous challenges of the future.
Most crucially, he has overseen the phenomenally successful BBC iPlayer, which received 42 million programme requests in its first three months.
Under Ashley’s leadership, bbc.co.uk has also experienced a huge growth in popularity. It is now ranked as the third most popular website in the UK, and on average is visited by 20 million people a week. He is also responsible for our mobile services, Information & Archives and the award winning BBCi, the BBC's digital interactive TV service - as well as overseeing the critical role of Research & Development at Kingswood Warren and the start of the roll-out of the Digital Media Initiative.
I will be announcing Ashley's leaving date in due course and we will shortly start the process to select and appoint his successor.
All the best,
Mark Thompson.
Nick Reynolds is editor, BBC Internet Blog.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~11~RS~)
Comments
Ashley, here's your chance to show your commitment to platform neutrality. Will your leadership of Project Kangaroo result in a VOD service that *all* of us can fully access?
Having written a wonderfully sarcastic though somewhat trite little gem of a comment, I've just done the old delete-and-start-again because there's some genuinely crucial points to be communicated here...
Firstly, I think it's long-overdue. Ashley's been sitting in that role for what must be 8 years now - we've seen web2.0, not to mention web1.0 and web.05 come and go in that time.
One of the biggest problems in the BBC is the lack of fluidity in positions - esp in something like the internet where the foundations are constantly changing and different knowledge and experience sets are needed in the same job over time.
Whilst Aslhey's role is 85% political I kinda hope it won't be as much for the next person. The 'politics' of proving to the BBC that the Internet is important and worth investing in is kinda proved. If ever there was an industry that thrived without as much politics as others it would be ours.
I'd like to see the new Director of Future Media and Technology be someone with far more interest and understanding of what's actually going on at the coal face - and getting it done right. By the time you've spent 2 years positioning and strategizing the market's already moved on.
Whilst it'll be very unlikely, I'd love to see someone from outside the BBC take up this position - there's enough people in the BBC to ensure that everything remain's "BBC like"/"BBC quality" we all enjoy. What the BBC needs is someone with some fresh ideas and alternative perspective who hasn't been producing constrained public service
Sadly, I'm not actually sure how many of the UK's top internet executives will find the meager £260k + bonus salary (with little scope for outside interests) an attractive package.
It would be interesting to know what kind of external interest this post attracts, and if I'm correct that the quality is poor, whether anyone in the BBC will review the remuneration of this position to attract the very best talent in the UK or even America.
(Point for sanity: yes, £260k is a lot of money, but in the Internet industry it's really not that great - perhaps VP level at a company the size of the BBC's internet division, a CEO would be making much much more. Don't forget the internet is a smaller industry in Europe than the TV industry so there isn't the same talent pool to pick from. And you have the US to compete with, which is where I moved to from the BBC. Finally, good dynamic people in this industry usually have multiple interests on the go which is something I believe you have to drop in a role like Director of FM&T and there is no compensation for that.)