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Former Microsoft man becomes new head of BBC tech

There’s a new digital sheriff at the BBC today. What will Erik Huggers bring to the iPlayer party?

August 1st | Tell us what you think [ 0 comments ]

A former Microsoft man in charge of Auntie Beebâ��s digital service? Huggers says his "loyalties are to the BBC and the BBC alone"

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It might not make the six o'clock news, but big things are happening at the BBC: from today, former Microsoft man Erik Huggers becomes director of future media and technology, making him one of the most powerful men in digital media. Meanwhile Huggers' former boss, Ashley Highfield, is already working on the broadband TV Project Kangaroo, a partnership between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.

In his eight years at the Beeb Highfield oversaw massive changes that boosted BBC.co.uk traffic to over 18 million visitors per month, opened up archive material for ordinary punters to muck about with, and launched a little application called iPlayer. You may have heard of it. With Project Kangaroo, Highfield will continue to push his vision of "a 100% digital Britain", negotiating with broadcasters and distributors to find new ways to deliver online video. The aim is "to do for broadband what Freeview did for digital TV".

Massive budget

Back at the Beeb, Huggers will have his hands full. The 2008/09 budget for BBC.co.uk alone is £114.4 million, and his role puts him in charge not just of the BBC website, but of all the corporation's internet, mobile, interactive and broadband services. It also gives him the awkward job of finding a solution to the iPlayer problem, where ISPs want the BBC to pay for the extra demand iPlayer users put on their networks.

So how did Huggers end up at the BBC? After nine years at Microsoft, running Windows Media in Europe and working closely with big-name entertainment firms, he realised that his real passion wasn't the technology that entertainment firms were using; it was the stuff they could do with it. He briefly considered moving to the film industry, but felt they weren't fully ready to embrace the internet. Then the BBC came a-knocking. "It dawned on me that there was probably no better organisation on the planet to truly drive innovation…" he writes on the BBC Internet Blog. He didn't come alone, though: he brought Jon Billings from Windows Media to join the iPlayer team and former MSN developer Anthony Rose to become the Beeb's head of digital media technology.