I would personally love a budget of £36m for my web sites. To be able to overspend in a single year that sum is just beyond the comprehension of most people working on the internet, but this is what the BBC has done.
As I mentioned before, the irony was not lost on me when the BBC's Digital Director came to lecture an FT.COM conference audience on building a web business. The absence of the need to generate revenue left me wonder what Ashley Highfield's basis for authority was. But I assumed he would have the experience and responsibility for cost management and sticking to a budget.
Apparently not. The 'fluid nature' of the internet is being blamed, but in the real world the costs are coming down due to open source alternatives, cheaper hardware and bandwidth and stiffer competiton. The BBC seems to be detached from market realities and even market trends.
Rather than lecture us whilst sitting in the jacuzzi of cash, maybe they might spend a week or a month at a company that has to balance its technology costs with its business revenues and learn a few lessons?
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