32 posts tagged “bbc”
Pasted interview from NMA.co.uk - front page interview with me.
Disruption through innovation is the philosophy of Richard Titus, head of digital at the Daily Mail , who has ambitious plans for new partnerships, hyperlocal sites and mobile
curriculum vitae
• Name
Richard Titus
• Title
CEO, Associated Northcliffe Digital
• Age
41
• Education
2001-02 Management development for entrepreneurs, Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles
• Career
1993-94 Director of A&R and production, Moonshine Music
1994-96 Director of new media and theatrical line producer, Motion Picture Corporation of America
1996-98 Founder, president and CEO, Tag Media
1998-99 MD, Razorfish Los Angeles 1999-2001 VP of strategic investments and VP of strategic business development, Razorfish
2001-06 Co-founder and president, Plinyminor
2001-07 Vice-chairman, New Media Council; founding board member, Producers Guild of America
2002-04 Founder, president and
CEO, Schematic
2004-07 Co-founder, vice-chairman and president, Schematic
2005-06 Executive producer, Who Killed the Electric Car?
2007 Controller of user experience and design, BBC Future Media & Technology
2007-08 Board of directors, Your Truman Show
2008-09 Controller, future media, audio, music and mobile, BBC Future Media & Technology
2007-present Board of directors, Mobile Entertainment Forum
Richard Titus isn’t your standard digital head. He’s a film producer, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a former VP of digital agency Razorfish and a committed environmentalist. Now CEO at Associated Northcliffe Digital (AND), reporting to Associated Newspapers group MD Kevin Beatty, Titus has impressive credentials and isn’t shy about his achievements. Six month into his new role, he claims to work out of love rather than necessity.
“I’m not very good when unemployed,” he admits. He took six months off after Razorfish during which he built a new house and played video games but became bored. “I love building things and effecting great change.”
Disruption through innovation: it’s a message he repeats throughout our interview. The term has been a key theme of his career and informs his strategy for AND.
AND is the digital consumer division of Daily Mail &; General Trust, operating the digital properties of Associated Newspapers and Northcliffe Media and running their classifieds sites. Mail Online, Metro and Loopylove are among its portfolio of more than 150 sites.
Titus came on board because he saw potential in the AND marketplaces, such as dating, car purchasing at Motors.co.uk and job-hunting via Jobsite. The AND strategy is to create content and services around some of a consumer’s most critical life stages. “These create real value for consumers,” he says, claiming that AND is first, second or third in each of these markets.
He has a strong track record of innovation. He started agencies Tag Media and Schematic, and had a variety of roles at the BBC after director of Future Media & Technology Erik Huggers invited him on board in July 2007. As controller of user experience, Titus was instrumental in taking the BBC home page from “one of the worst to one of the market leaders”.
By the time he left the BBC, Titus was controller of audio, music and mobile for BBC Future & Media and had relaunched the Corporation’s mobile site to include more personalisation features (nma 12 March 2009).
One of the biggest areas of innovation for publishers is charging models. But while others, such as News International and Independent News & Media, are investigating pay walls, AND’s focus is on ad funding using its ad network and setting up partnerships. This means finding opportunities for collaboration across the portfolio and finding new verticals. One such area is travel. “It’s a huge opportunity. If I want to book a vacation, it’s an inefficient market. Should we be in broad discount travel? The opportunities are endless.”
Very much closer to home, AND’s hyperlocal strategy, Local People, established before Titus joined, is one of the areas he’s most proud of. The publisher has launched 32 community sites in places which have populations of between 10,000 and 50,000 and no local paper, such as Falmouth and Bideford (nma 2 July 2009). The sites encourage the local community to chat with each other and write and publish their own stories on local issues.
“We’re seeing a phenomenal amount of user engagement,” says Titus. “It’s an opportunity to be game-changers, especially compared with our competitors, if we can capture local communities and provide opportunities for local businesses to engage and create trust.”
He gives the example of when he moved to London and wanted to find out where was the best butcher. “It would have been useful to have a local community site to help me find one nearby.” He says the hyperlocal strategy has been successful, basing this on the number of users, average engagement and repeat visits.
Another area key of AND’s strategy is partnerships. Its used-car site Motors.co.uk partnered with Bauer Media’s Parker’s, the car-buying advice site, in July to offer a selection of used cars. The digital unit has also signed a deal with Johnston Press to become the supplier of online recruitment across its sites, such as Beverley Guardian and Scarborough Evening News. Despite some of its most recent deals being with competitors, AND sees such partnerships as widening the reach of its digital portfolio. Titus says, “There’s nothing wrong with them, we should be partnering as much as building or buying.'
As well as partnerships, mobile is another platform he sees as crucial. “It’s my expectation that every one of my portfolio businesses will have a mobile manifestation by the end of the year.” He believes all AND publications should have some kind of mobile presence, adding this is also key to its hyperlocal strategy.
Display is an area AND has made strides in. While Titus is tight-lipped about the publisher’s foray into this space - which includes handling sales for all its online properties and third-party sites such as Hellomagazine.com (nma 3 July 2009) and remnant inventory across Independent.co.uk - he believes the network market is seriously undervalued.
“The challenge with networks is scale and technology. The UK average CPMs are a fraction of those in the US and even Slovakia, which doesn’t make sense,” says Titus.
He’s also not that impressed with behavioural targeting, arguing it hasn’t been exploited properly. “Why do I still see a ton of advertising not relevant to me with all my publicly available information? It’s inefficient.”
Looking to the future, the Californian is aiming for the business to start thinking of itself as both global and local. And, of course, the pioneer is launching a review of its environmental activities to make sure AND has a sustainable green focus.
I have always lived my life counter-cyclically (sic), leaving Razorfish before the .com crash, buying what became Schematic at the bottom of the last .com recession and then leaving the film business after a series of Sundance Film Festival hits.
From the outside, these moves seemed mad, but most of them proved to be quite prescient, and often lucrative. Moreover, I'm driven by a need to be intellectually and creatively challenged; complacency isn't in my vocabulary. I love to make things, and build teams - and businesses.So today, I've made an announcement which will catch many by surprise. I have decided to leave the BBC to join DMGT, a large British media conglomerate to become the CEO of the division which holds their digital businesses, Associated Northcliffe Digital (http://and.co.uk).
I'm incredibly proud of the work I've done over the past two years at the BBC: the redesign and transformation of the www, mobile and itv services, BBC iPlayer on all of its platforms and of course the mobile and online personalized homepages. Doing one of these would have been an achievement in itself. These successes and their resulting recognition and awards, the GSMA award for mobile BBC iPlayer, the Bafta nomination for /programmes and the .net awards for the redesigns would have been impossible without the amazing teams and people I had by my side at the BBC, I will miss them incredibly.
But for now it's on to the future and a new, much larger challenge, and one I hope and believe will be equally, if not more, stimulating and rewarding. Given the economic and sector transitions in media, publishing, commerce and technology - I have heard opportunity knocking - and can't help myself but open the door and let her in!
Best
This week, I took several steps to reduce my carbon footprint in the world. As some will already know though we've lived in London for bordering on three years, we do not own a car! Instead in addition to being an avid public transport user (though its not workable for my routes to and from work - as i need to drop the kids off at school) I use a pair of car services Ecoigo and Green Tomato to get from place to place. While it's slightly more than a car payment, when you add parking, congestion charge, gas, insurance and the value of the extra reading/phone time for me in the back, it's pretty much a wash in cost. More importantly, I have an incredibly low carbon footprint due to the use of a shared vehicle, which also, as a hybrid or electric has an even lower carbon/pollution index.
However, it's time to buy a car, mostly as the wife and kids want to begin exploring the countryside, and additional parts of Great Britain we've not seen, particularly the north and west (Wales). So the quest for a car begins. The 1st thing we did was put ourselves on the waiting list (secured place and everything) for a new Tesla S-series (I got to drive a Roadster back pre-release when we made Who Killed the Electric Car? However, the Tesla, even if we manage to get an early one, won't be available until at least 2010. So we need a car short-term (given that Tavin and I are about to become certified, licensed, UK drivers (my test is next week!). I'd prefer an electric, but just don't fit in a Nice or mini (at 6'2" it just won't work) I'd like to buy a Tesla Roadster, but the wife, kindly pointed out it wasnt' very practical for the kids. So we are still negotiating - any ideas welcome!
Lastly, A few weeks ago when I was at 3GSMA I stumbled upon a fascinating booth. The Solio is a combination solar charger and shared battery pack (similar to the Tumi Powerpack) but with power cells. Now frankly Solar chargers for phones/ipods/(or in those days walkmen) aren't exactly new - I had something similar from an Early Winters catalog in my teens. But the difference with this one is that it REALLY works.
I've used it on walks in the heath, or o days when I forget to charge my Blackberry/Iphone/iPod and find it indespensible. With my upcoming surf-adventure, I'm keen to use it in bright sunshine and see if my crackberry habit can lower its carbon footprint. More on that in the future.
Lastly, I'm giving a speach at a sold out session at the RSA on the future and mobile; topics I particularly love.
My team launched our newest proposition today - the BBC Mobile Homepage - with customization and device detection.. an AMAZING feat.. it's a nice book-end to the work I started just over a year ago with the revamp of the BBC's homepage. I've co-written a blog about it on the BBC Blogs about it - which you should take a look at. We've had a TON of positive response on it in the press - including some reviews. I've posted some of them below:
BBC revamps mobile site focusing on customisation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/mar/11/bbc-mobilephones
http://www.nma.co.uk/Articles/41820/BBC+launches+beta+of+personalised+mobile+service.html
http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/32848/BBC-revamps-mobile-site
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/mar/11/bbc-mobilephones
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031100389.html
http://ariel.gateway.bbc.co.uk/viewDailyNews.asp?storyID=20950
http://www.t3.com/news/new-bbc-mobile-homepage-goes-live?=38346
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/11/bbc_mobile_beta/
http://www.techdigest.tv/2009/03/i_wasnt_aware_t.html
http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?id=3300
http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-mobile-content-bits-bbc-updates-mobile-times-going-out-guide/
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2009/03/11/4047600.htm
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/bbc-unveils-new-mobile-homepage-580949
http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2009/3/11/bbc-mobile-website-gets-refreshed/
http://www.mobileshop.com/news/index.php/2009/march/bbc-optimises-mobile-website
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39029453,49301483,00.htm
http://www.indiantelevision.com/end/y2k9/mar/12marge3.php
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/9117_BBC_Mobile_gets_a_Custom_Refre.php
Congrats to Ulyssa, Lucy, Jason, Jon, and the other Jason and the team!
Best
It was a crazy crazy week in Barcelona for Global Mobile World Congress. I need the weekend just to digest the activities of the week. A couple of highlights:
- I was elected to serve on the Board of the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF)
- BBC iPlayer won the GSMA award for best audio/video application (the industry's highest honor!) - congrats team.
In the midst of this
Interesting press clippings in no particular order:
One of my BBC teams - the BBC RAD unit got some great coverage
Nic Newman (one of my collegues) is quoted at a conference in Sydney.
Erik Huggers (my boss) interviewed in Silicon iPlayer perpetually in Beta
Hello all,
Been getting lots of Press lately on iPlayer:
The Financial Times
A few more but I'll make you google them.
Best
SO it's official, Obama is president. My wife can smugly say "she called it" at the end of the democratic national convention 8 years ago where he gave, what I describe as an oration, rather just a speech.
He's done it again, and again, and slowly people got over the fact that he was black, a lawyer, (law professor more intimidatingly) at least somewhat from Africa, has an Arabic middle name.. ok seriously, did anybody bother vetting this guy at all? and thus occurred, what I often refer to as the most unlikely and therefore somehow absolutely certain thing: Barack Hussein Obama is now President of the United States of America.
In the same week, thanks to my new job, I'm starting to meet lots of interesting people in the handset business, carrier business, and general mobile technology space. I've discovered that i am like a crack dealer um, candy store.. I have Free BBC content, they have devices..
I feel slightly dirty, plus I get new phones all the time (newest is a new Blackberry Bold) which once Siemens get their hands on it and do whatever voodoo they need to do, I'll be able to use! BTW the Blackberry strategy is genius, leveraging the enterprise to build consumer, app stores, alignment of side-loading and streaming. I'm keen to see them deploy it; though curious how it will play against Apple (entrenched leader) and the new Palm (which is like the rebel alliance as it's management is all former apple folks)
But mostly it made me wonder about Barack's Blackberry, which had been slated for cold fingered pry-based removal. BUT WAIT. in what is possibly his FIRST act of presidential executive privilege, he got to keep it! This, gives me even more faith that this is a man who's gonna get things done, most particularly in the midst of other, even more boring meetings.
Made me decide to phone bomb our IT desk to get my Bold activated.. joining my n96, iPhone and soon HTC HD (for demo's only)as my tools for increased productivity in the face of mind-numbing bureaucracy.
| 10 Dec 2008 12:28 |
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Net growth in Radio listenership
Nearly one third of UK adults now listening online, podcast audiences also up and iPlayer tops Google's growth chart
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This compares with 14.5m in May ‘08 when the biannual survey was last conducted. This includes 15m listening live and 13.5m listening at a later time using 'Listen Again' services such as iPlayer.
Three quarters of those Listen Again listeners said the service has no impact on the amount of live radio to which they listen; while almost half said they are now listening to radio programmes to which they did not listen previously.
iPlayer has also topped Google's chart for the fastest growing search terms, with growth above those recorded for the biggest hitters of 2007, Facebook and YouTube. 'BBC' was the second most popular search term in the UK, ahead of YouTube but behind Facebook.
Podcasting appears to have a positive effect on radio listening with 35% saying that they now listen to radio programmes to which they did not listen previously.
7.2m people have downloaded a podcast (up from 6m in May 2008), and 4.1m said they listened to a podcast each week (up from 3.7m in May ’08 and 1.9m in November 2007).
So the .Net magazine awards are in and my team and their efforts have been well recognized!
.Net awards 2009 (for those who’ve not seen it)
BBC won in the following categories...
- Web application of the year : BBC iPlayer, runners up Gmail & Photoshop Express
- Best redesign of the year: bbc.co.uk, Runners up Last.fm & Facebook-
- Mobile site of the year: bbc.co.uk/mobile, Runners up Google Mail & Facebook
Not bad for a year of work!
