re: IT is not an optional extra for a broadcaster
Siemens are the bane of all BBC employees and anyone that has to work with the BBC.
Somebody that i know works for Red Bee Media (Formally BBC Broadcast). Red Bee is basically a broadcast outsourcing management company, they playout all of the BBC channels, All of the Channel 4 (C4) channels, channel 5's disaster recovery and many many more.
*All* of the public service channels expect for ITV are outsourced and run by Red Bee Media.
The problem with this (aside form the obvious one of a single company having full technical control over the nation's public service broadcasters) is that underneath the flashy red bee logo it is still BBC broadcast. They are actually trying to run a 1000 employee outfit as if it were still the size of the BBC.
Red tape aplenty - unbelievably expensive, essentially broken and unusable IT systems to "make life easier" - not one but three set's of timesheets for every individual to complete
A change management system that requires *any* and *all* changes to be written up(Using said expensive and unworkable "make life easier IT systems"), documented and presented to a "Change Management Board" who meet just once a week. If you need to be reboot a server or make a small change to a script you must wait until Monday regardless of how serious it is or how none of the fat, overpaid managers that snort down there noses at you without ever understanding what it is your begging them to do - will usually deny your request due to you not providing a made up Budget code or an incident reference. NO no, we wont just have you add the details we ask and get on with it. NO no, you can wait until next monday. After all, the management are very busy.
Outsourced IT and Phones to Serco. MY god, it is a miracle that the world functions with Serco at the helm. anyone that has every phoned an IT helpdesk, been driven to court etc... will share the pain on this one. The person i know who works for Red Bee is a Principle Engineer an his company laptop is so locked down he is not even allowed to change his IP address. The web proxy filters such naughty sites as apple.com, Google.com!! and, well most sites actually. Lets see you try and download some software and updates from behind and over configured bluecoat !
insane management muttering orders seemingly in defiance of the blatantly obvious whilst thumbing through a Dummies Guide to running a business that has to pay it's way and make money,
Overstaffed due to the immense inefficiency of the corporate workflow and under equipped due to a total lack of understanding of the nature of the business by senior, middle and for the most part junior management.
A place where there are no tools (screw drivers and the like). More than 30 engineers doing the work of 10 engineers.
A company that does not see a problem in having to pay 30 engineers to do the work of 10 since the 30 all have one hand tied to their balls and and have to spend more time doing worthless paperwork to generate worthless statistics for the management than they do actual engineering.
A company where nobody knows the root password let alone the administrator account....nobody actually set one
ITV Tech, mark my words, if they are not already talking to Red Bee then they soon will be. And god help them all.
AC as my "friend" would like to remain so.
Linear TV funded by the 30 second advert is dead anyway, unless ITV step up their game and show content that people would watch online or on demand then ITV is finished. Bin the 30 second ad model (it isnt working anyway) and go to product placement and sponsorship, get your shows onto a new distribution platform and move on from there.