BBC Turns to P2P for VOD

Many critics, however, allege that the BBC is out of control, a bloated bureaucracy exploiting its special relationship with central government (sometimes strained, especially around the Iraq War issue-- the BBC is not subject to direct political control but it is still seen as a national resource) to grab as much market share as it can, especially in the digital television space. Thompson has responded by promising a 20% staffing reduction over the next three years and the selling off of the BBC technology division to Siemens Business Solutions.

"The BBC is in some ways in crisis, at least in terms of how its wider role is perceived," comments Charlie Davies, senior analyst at UK IT analyst firm Ovum Group. "It has much political pressure around funding to handle and it must be seen to justify its vast direct income. How does it confirm its relevance to an increasingly fragmented audience as it competes with other broadcasters? The real point here is that it thinks radical innovation, being at the cutting edge of programming delivery, is where it must play."

This background informs the tentative yet undeniably bold nature of the MyBBCPlayer announcement. "These plans are subject to the approval of the board of governors and the resolution of rights clearance issues on content like music and imported shows," Thompson stressed to his Edinburgh audience.

"We are not sure about the impact of this on the Plc [wider company] plan to monitoring the results of the trial very carefully," adds BBC controller of the Internet Tony Ageh, who is tasked with the strategic direction of the corporation’s online activities. At the same time, Ageh admits, "We see this as having a positive impact on audience behavior [and] we are more excited about this than it being just a minor trial of something."

The trial he’s referring to is some 5,000 carefully selected consumers who will be offered a version of IMP (Interactive Media Player), a prelude to MyBBCPlayer delivered to the PC that is set to evolve into the full commercial release if plans come to fruition.

The underlying technology platform on which MyBBCPlayer and IMP are built is provided by U.S.-based firm Kontiki. The company’s peer-to-peer solution is increasingly being used as weapon of choice for delivering large media files over IP, according to Kontiki CEO Todd Johnson. "We are unique in using a legal way to use peer-to-peer–buttressed by rights protection–to make mass consumption of these kinds of properties a reality," he claims.

The advantage of P2P for this application is that it avoids the need to pump out huge files centrally; instead, a network of collaborating computers team up to share the workload with the content neatly splitting into many component pieces, all reassembled at the user’s PC after locating the nearest and easiest nodes from which to retrieve the next needed element. This way quality of service isn’t constrained at any point during the delivery chain. "At peak periods this means successful delivery even with relatively modest amounts of backup infrastructure," Johnson says—acknowledging that this is exactly how "pirate" services like Gnutella and Grokster have been moving content for quite some time.

Why use this approach? "For us, the quality of the signal is all-important," says Ageh. "Unicast is too expensive a way to do this. Streaming, while very successful for our radio content, would be too slow for most households. There’s also the much larger TV file-versus-radio program aspect. So peer-to-peer is the best way to get the file to the user in an acceptable time and quality of picture."

The technology is one part of the picture, the business story another. What’s really at stake here is what successful on-demand TV could do to traditional ways of consuming TV. "All broadcasters are thinking of doing something like this," says Ageh. "And we have a very large programming archive to work with, of course."

If that seems something of a boast, remember that just one of the BBC’s assets, science fiction show Dr Who--a series that it killed off in the 1980s but has just very successfully revived--is so popular that planet-wide searches regularly occur to find more "lost" 1960s episodes on DVD. "The BBC can extract a huge amount of ‘capital’ from its existing resources, let alone new ones, if it finds new ways to deliver them," notes Ovum’s Davies. "This would dilute some criticism but also place it strongly in any evolution to a fully on-demand future in the UK market, as seems to be emerging with plans by [Rupert Murdoch’s competitive] Sky satellite platform, among others."

However there are still major issues to be ironed out, she says, especially around digital rights management (Microsoft’s technology is supposed to be part of the MyBBCPlayer trial, for instance). "But it’s certainly very possible now today to broadcast high-quality TV signals over commonly available broadband pipes into the home." The BBC’s MyBBCPlayer trial "is very significant," she concludes, as it represents "a major national provider committing to do this."

Kontiki’s Johnson agrees. "This is a fantastic way to work with all the content the BBC has in its store and continually produces," he enthuses. "This is going to be a model for content owners, cable companies, satellite providers, and others all over the world as it will have a great user interface, search and storage backed by string metadata, and other attractive aspects. The BBC is being cautious, sure, but this is going to be huge for them we think."

"Internally we’re calling this DC2–Dot Com Two," adds Feargal Kelly, media solutions director for Ioko, a media systems integrator also involved in the project. "Kontiki is the only company that can use P2P to get around network contention and bandwidth issues to make this a reality. Ultimately this is the next step for all broadcasting: every phone will have broadband and we’ll watch content on it."

Peter White, CEO of UK media and mobility researchers Rethink Research, agrees. "The technology is straightforward: it’s BitTorrent deployed by a $5 billion broadcaster," he says. "The BBC needs to seed the market and get some million plus players out there first, yes, but then it will be an incredibly strong position because of its domestic status but also all that content it can play with."

That content has already been exposed on the Internet without the BBC’s control. A BBC spokesperson says the broadcaster got a "wake-up call" about the demand for IPTV style new technology this past March, when the first episode of the relaunched Doctor Who was leaked on to the Internet. The staffer who did that has been fired, but maybe he should be invited back in as a consultant to help turn IMP into the MyBBCPlayer asset the company could have on its hands … subject to approval by the Board of Governors, of course.