BBC Worldwide, the public broadcaster’s overseas, commercial arm, has made eight hires to its new “digital delivery” team, the unit created in May as a central producer for all the company’s consumer-facing web content. Dan Heaf becomes director of digital ventures, having joined from the public service counterpart’s BBC Vision and Audio & Music divisions, where he worked on bbc.co.uk social media projects and Radio 1’s website; his responsibility now is to grow and execute new digital ideas for the revenue-generating wing. Alex White, whom you might have known previously as director of the Association of Online Publishers in the UK, becomes launch director, again executing web projects from conception to go-live. Existing BBC Worldwide staffer Jon Noakes has been hired as head of digital strategy and business development and, also from inside the company, the new team gains Duncan Swain as creative director and Craig Musker as head of development, as well as further production staff.
What exactly will they be launching? The team has so far worked on the sites for the BBC’s commercial magazines – Radio Time, Good Food and Gardeners’ World. Previous reports hold BBC Worldwide wants to give Top Gear a bigger international online presence and the company’s latest annual report posted a 24 percent profit hike, with money allocated for “substantial investment, especially in realising digital opportunities”.