BBC on the net before 1996
For the record, Brandon Butterworth did many important things during this period, but he did not create the BBC Networking Club, in fact he had nothing to do with it and didn't like it. I should know, I was involved in setting it up. In April 1994, the BBCNC put up the BBC's first Web pages in conjunction with a programme on BBC 2 called The Net. To the best of our knowledge this was a first anywhere in the world.
At that time, the Reith IP network in the BBC was the private domain of BBC engineers and jealously guarded by them. They had a 64kbps connection to the outside world and didn't want anyone else using it for fear it would use up their bandwidth. They never went anywhere near programme makers. So, when we set up the BBCNC as an initiative of BBC Education (as it was called at that time) we had to go outside the BBC to get server support from a small company called TECC, persuaded Pipex to expand their dial-up network, and lobby BT to get a 1Mbps line into their offices in time for the first episode on April 13th. We also had to battle with policy planning to persuade them that the Internet was a tool of the CIA and filled with porn (they had a point). I can remember going to see Brandon in an engineering building out in Acton somewhere, sitting in a darkened room, and having the strong impression that he didn't really want to help us at all. Anyway, we did start inviting him to meetings because BBC staff started wanting Internet access and were using the BBCNC dial up software to get connected, which was daft, so we were trying to help him put pressure on his bosses to expand their connection to the outside world and help BBC staff get access to the Internet directly. It wasn't easy. Meanwhile, we travelled all over the place, from BBC Wales to BBC Scotland, to the Worldservice, to Bush House and to BBC News -- I remember quite a few sessions with Mike Smartt. We were picking up work putting all sorts of very basic Web pages together for programmes, and from time to time doing specials like Radio 1's first Internet night in March 1995.
While doing this, we were constantly fighting off BBC Worldwidewho believed that that the only thing to do was a deal with Microsoft, which the McKinsey consultants involved were backing, and building a concensus that the BBC should consider the Internet a public communication channel, rather than a new commercial opportunity. That didn't stop a deal being done eventually with Fujitsu ICL which had doom written all over it from the start. But the BBCNC was canned to make way for this deal, on what turned out to be somewhat spurious grounds that we had crossed the line between public service and commercial interests, but there we go. The BBCNC team got merged into a BBC Multimedia Centre during 1996, which in turn got overtaken by BBC On-line.
Anyway, got that off my chest. As I say Brandon did a lot of important work, but it was the BBCNC that got him moving and the BBC's presence on the Internet into the sunshine, not the other way round, and no matter what his blog piece says!!!!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
