BBC, IBM in Strategic Alliance

LONDON, March 5: Just a few days since announcing a landmark
agreement with YouTube, the BBC has inked another deal in the new media sector,
signing an alliance with IBM for several projects, beginning with one for
CBeebies and CBBC.

The BBC and IBM will work on applying state-of-the-art
image/video search technologies to CBeebies and CBBC programs. The IBM research
system, code-named "Marvel," can visually analyze images and video to
categorize the content based on appearance and make it easier to search. The
project will utilize Marvel to create a set of multimedia interactive search experiences
for accessing BBC children's content online.

Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of future media and
technology, noted: "This alliance with IBM will offer new and genuinely
innovative services to our audiences. For example, combining the BBC's massive
TV and radio archive with IBM's cutting-edge research into video and audio
search technology should provide the means to unlocking huge latent value in
our long tail of content."

In addition, IBM will work with Siemens, the BBC's official
technology partner, to deploy a pilot of its Media Hub technology in order to
trial new business processes and ways of working amongst the BBC's creative
teams. IBM is also discussing potential collaboration projects with the BBC in
areas including content distribution, customer relations management, joint
research and rights management.