LONDON: BBC Ventures Group, the BBC's commercial business-to-business division, has launched BBC Vecta. The aim is to develop and market products from the BBC's Research and Development team, and other strategic partners, for the media and entertainment markets.
An official release informs that BBC Vecta will create fresh revenues for the BBC, which will be reinvested into programming. Through its business units, it will select and commercialise innovations from BBC R&D and elsewhere which may well have been proven within the rigorous environment of the BBC before reaching the market.
This approach not only reduces risk in making the investment, but also ensures that there is an existing demand and usefulness for the products within the media and entertainment arena. CEO, BBC Ventures Group Roger Flynn, said: "The government set us a challenge to find creative ways to raise commercial revenues. For us, BBC Vecta is part of our response and seeks to capture more of the value that is inherent in innovations within the BBC."
MD BBC Vecta Mark Popkiewicz said, "The commercial expertise in Vecta combined with the technical expertise within the BBC R&D represents huge assets that will be utilised to generate fresh income for BBC's programmes and services. This means that we can make effective investments in new innovations that enable broadcasters to make the whole viewing experience more compelling."
As a first step towards achieving its goals, BBC Vecta launched the first of its businesses, the Wireless Broadcast Unit. The Wireless Broadcast Unit is a specialist provider of wireless broadcast products for the media and entertainment arena. The Wireless Broadcast Unit brings the BBC's award winning technologies to programme makers enabling them to push the boundaries of what they can deliver to viewers live creating fresh revenues which will then be reinvested back into the BBC.
Its first investment is in the Digital Radio Camera (DRC). The camera has already been used in over 100 award-winning productions such as the Queen's Jubilee and the Commonwealth Games. The aim of BBC Vecta's Wireless Business Unit is to build on this technology and commercialises it for the programme makers. In addition, it has already identified its next two investments, which will see wireless digital cameras for the news (ENG) and studio environments come to the market later this year.