Government approves £2bn BBC Technology sale

Culture secretary Tessa Jowell has approved the £2bn sale of BBC Technology to Siemens.

The BBC's technology arm will now be provided with services via an outsourced agreement with the IT supplier, and comes as the culmination of nine months of supplier selection for the BBC.

'BBC Technology is a real success story, but it's hampered by the fact it belongs to a content organisation not a technology company, and our job is to invest in programme making and content, not technology,' BBC chief technology officer John Varney told Computing.

'We set out to do something that we knew would be very tight. From the moment we identified there was of the order of £100,000 per day to be saved, we had to act,' he said.

The contract will include the usual aspect such as IT, business systems, application development, network servers, and telephony, but Siemens will also take over much of the broadcast technology, including digital coding and multiplexing for BBC's digital services, satellite distribution, the London Media Gateway - a fibre ring in London which is used to broadcast content - and all the third-party business BBC Technology does with organisation.

The Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union (Bectu) has reacted with gloom to the news that Jowell has given the deal the go-ahead on the basis that there was 'no legitimate reason' to block it.

'This decision will come as a blow to our members in BBC Technology who have opposed the sell-off since it was first proposed,' said Bectu assistant general secretary Gerry Morrissey.

'This isn't just the BBC selling off one of its crown jewels, it's a case of handing its central nervous system over to the private sector,' he said.

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