The IET Prestige Lecture Series

The IET Appleton Lecture & Dinner 2009
New approaches to digital distribution and broadcasting

7 April 2009 - The IET, Savoy Place, London, UK

Andrew Bud - Executive Chairman, mBlox Inc >> go to webcast>> recommend to friend   Kerstin Mogull - Chief Operating Officer, BBC Future Media & Technology >> go to webcast>> recommend to friend   Questions and answers >> go to webcast>> recommend to friend

About the lecture

A time of rapid change is coming to the industries of digital information, content and broadcasting. Advances in the nature of television – from PAL to HDTV and beyond, with new methods of creation and production, are changing the substance of public broadcasting. With the oncoming end of analogue, advances in digital distribution – broadband internet, high speed mobile and wireless access, low cost storage – are changing the way that content will be delivered and presented.

Yet these changes also are creating great challenges. New investments in infrastructure and technology and new cost structures are challenging traditional business models, both in content and in distribution. New approaches, based on new partnerships and new economic relationships will emerge. The Appleton Lecture will seek to explore these opportunities.

The BBC has been outstandingly successful in developing the model of public service broadcasting onto new platforms with new technologies. The global viewership of bbc.co.uk, and the impact of the BBC iPlayer are examples of this leadership.

In her speech, Kerstin Mogull, Chief Operating Officer of BBC Future Media & Technology, will discuss the central role that partnership will play at the heart of Public Service Broadcasting in the future.

The BBC has a history of developing and sharing new technologies, and the evolution towards digital content and distribution creates new opportunities to improve the cost effectiveness of the whole PSB industry through sharing and partnership. New technologies will facilitate the sharing of content across multiple platforms, and Kerstin will discuss partnerships in the area of digital production, IPTV and the evolution of the BBC iPlayer.

The success of the BBC iPlayer has highlighted some stresses latent in the business model of the internet industry. The continuing viability of financing the industry on access, rather than on content delivery, has been questioned. The mobile industry’s traditional model has been very different, and the arrival of mobile broadband is forcing some choices on both the fixed and mobile industry.

In his speech, Andrew Bud, Executive Chairman of mBlox and Global Chair of the Mobile Entertainment Forum will examine the issues arising from the use of the internet – fixed and mobile – as a distribution channel for public service broadcasting and other digital content, and discuss some new relationships and partnerships that will have to emerge in order to secure the future development of broadband.

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About the speakers

Kerstin Mogull
Chief Operating Officer, BBC Future Media & Technology

Kerstin Mogull is the Chief Operating Officer, BBC Future Media & Technology. She took up the newly-created role in September 2008. In this role, Kerstin focuses on the effective management and governance of the division, its partnership with other BBC divisions – Vision, Audio & Music and Journalism – and its relationship with the BBC Trust.

She was previously Deputy Director, Policy & Strategy, where she played an instrumental role in driving the BBC's strategy for content across all media platforms. Prior to this, she was Controller for the Strategy Group, where she was responsible for some of the

Corporation's most important initiatives, including Delivering Creative Future. Kerstin was born in Stockholm. She has a degree in economics awarded jointly by the Stockholm School of Economics and HEC in Paris; she earned an MBA in Chicago, where she was a Fulbright scholar.

Kerstin joined the BBC in 2001. She held a number of posts in BBC Ventures, developing an international strategy for the BBC's technology and play-out services, before moving to Factual and Learning as Head of Strategy in April 2004. In Factual and Learning, she was part of the team that led the Content Supply Review, an in-depth analysis of the BBC's commissioning and production systems. Kerstin also drew up the strategy for Knowledge Building content across all platforms.

Prior to joining the BBC, Kerstin held senior strategy posts in the airline industry with United Airlines and American Airlines, first in the United States and later in the UK. She started her career in Sweden in the IT industry with Ericsson. In addition to the US and UK she has worked in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Sweden.

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Andrew Bud
Executive Chairman, mBlox Inc.

Andrew Bud is Executive Chairman of the Board of mBlox Inc, the world’s largest mobile transaction network. He co-founded the company in London in 1999 and as CEO until 2003 built it to become a leading provider of mobile messaging delivery and billing services for businesses.

Now mBlox processes each year nearly 2.5 billion transactions worth $500m, connecting a range of enabling services between hundreds of mobile operators and thousands of mobile content & service businesses worldwide.

Since June 2008 Andrew has been the Global Chairman of
the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), the global trade association of the mobile content and services industry, on whose Board he has served since 2001. He is also the current Chair of the Advisory Council of the UCL Computer Science Department. From 2005 until 2008 Andrew served as a member of the Board of PhonePayPlus (previously ICSTIS), the Ofcom agency charged with regulating Premium Rate Services.

From 1988 to 1996, Andrew was in Italy as head of mobile technology for Olivetti, and was the founding technical head of Omnitel (now Vodafone Italia) in 1994. Whilst at Olivetti, he also founded and ran Europe's first Wireless LAN business, and played a leading role in the development of Europe’s successful DECT standard.

Between 1996 and 1999 he was a Director of Connect Communications Group, a leading European provider of corporate telecommunications services, and was Group Marketing Director for Azlan plc, the £200m European distributor of internet technology.

Andrew is a Fellow of the IET, a Chartered Engineer, and is a graduate in Engineering from the University of Cambridge. He is married with four children.

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History of the Appleton Lecture

The Appleton Lecture was established in 1965 to commemorate the life and work of Sir Edward Appleton, a widely honoured physicist and Nobel Prize winner who is mainly noted for research into the upper atmosphere.

In 1924 Sir Edward was able to demonstrate the existence of the electrified reflecting layer in the upper atmosphere. The existence of this layer had been postulated by A E Kennelly and Oliver Heaviside. The existence of a second layer was also demonstrated, and this is often referred to as the Appleton Layer. Along with Douglas Hartree he established the magneto-ionic theory of the ionosphere. Appleton also made contributions to the development of radar, and studied the radio properties of sun-spots.

The majority of his papers are held at Edinburgh University Library. Texas University Library holds his letters to Sir O W Richardson, while his correspondence with Viscount Cherwell 1940 - 1955 is held by Nuffield College, Oxford. The Medical Research Council also holds miscellaneous correspondence.

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For further details you can contact us on:

Email: eventsa2@theiet.org
Tel: +44 (0) 1438 765 567

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