Ashley Highfield Quotations

Tech predictions can go up as well as down

It's all about coexistence - video didn't kill the radio star, after all.

It's all about putting the audience in the driving seat.

The mindset needs to shift from that of a mass producer and publisher to a much more potent mix of high-quality niche content, and also as a mass aggregator of third-party content,

There has to be a better scrutiny both in terms of copyright issues and in terms of taste and decency, if only to make sure that no one is breaking any criminal law.

Audience needs are changing -- they want to consume media on their terms, anytime, anyplace, anyhow. If we want to stay relevant in the digital age, the BBC must respond to this challenge by some seriously good technological innovation, resulting in products like iMP, through partnerships such as this one with Microsoft.

Audience expectations have grown. The Internet is a hugely compelling platform for us.

That transition is not easy for many publishers. For those who get the importance of search and navigation alongside content, the future will be a bit brighter.

That was a real insight for us. There has been no real demonstration that the long tail would work in television. Who knows what proportion of overall television consumption the long tail could account for.

The trick to responding to this change is to get the timing right, and to judge the impact on existing technology,