- Red Bee Media
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Red Bee Media Limited 
Type Private limited company Industry Media Founded 2005, see article for history Headquarters London, UK Key people Bill Patrizio
- Chief Executive Officer
Andy Bryant
- Director, Creative
David Padmore
- Director, Access & Editorial
Paul Phillips
- Director, Media Distribution Services
Andrew Court
- Chief Financial Officer
James Arnold
- Director, Commercial and Legal Affairs
Stella Medlicott
- Chief Marketing Officer
Steve Plunkett
- Director of Innovation and Technology
Kath Hollister
- Director, Human ResourcesEmployees Approximately 1,500 (Q1 2011) Website www.redbeemedia.com Red Bee Media Limited is a media management company.
Headquartered in west London, United Kingdom at the Broadcast Centre, with international offices in Australia, France, Germany and Spain, Red Bee Media has 1500 employees worldwide and revenues of £153m in 2008/09.
Clients include television broadcasters such as the BBC, UKTV, Virgin Media Television and Channel 4, as well as brands such as Nike, Lonely Planet, and Malaria No More. Red Bee Media transmits over 120 TV streams on Analogue, DTT, DSat, Cable, Web and Mobile, among them all the domestic BBC channels (except for BBC Parliament, the production and playout of which is handled by Millbank Studios), along with international channels including BBC World News, BBC Worldwide and BBC Food, and is viewed in over 200 countries and territories across the globe. It handles the majority of video on demand (VOD) services in the UK, including the BBC (BBC iPlayer) and Channel 4 (4OD)).
In August 2011 Red Bee Media purchased TV Genius in a multi-million pound deal[1].
Red Bee Media are one of the UK’s largest “one stop” integrator of video content management services (workflow, enhancement and delivery) together with brand and creative services.[citation needed]
Contents
History
Red Bee Media was formerly BBC Broadcast Limited. BBC Broadcast was created by the BBC in 2002, by placing a range of BBC channel creation and channel management services under one roof. It was part of an agreement with the British Government to create a commercial division that could supplement the BBC's income from the television licence, thus keeping the licence fee increases down in the future. The other entities within the commercial division were BBC Worldwide, BBC Resources, BBC Ventures and BBC Technology.
On 1 August 2005, BBC Broadcast, together with its subsidiaries, was sold for GBP 166 million to Creative Broadcast Services Limited, a company set up specifically for the purchase and jointly owned by Australian-based Macquarie Capital Alliance Group and Macquarie Bank Limited.[2] The company was renamed Red Bee Media on 27 October 2005. Shortly before the sale, BBC Broadcast bought Broadcasting Dataservices ("BDS") from BBC Worldwide thus strengthening the EPG and programme metadata offering.
The sale of BBC Technology to Siemens Business Services in 2004 leaves only BBC Worldwide and BBC Studios and Post Production as commercial BBC companies.
Clients
Red Bee Media's clients list includes:
- BBC
- France 3
- Canal+
- Five
- Ketnet
- Nederland 3
- Antena 1
- ITV
- La7
- UKTV
- Virgin Media
- RTÉ
- Discovery Channel
- M6
Operations
In addition to playout services, Red Bee Media provides "creative services", such as creation of advertisements, promotions and trailers for radio, television and interactive television, and "access services", such as subtitling, signing and audio description for the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 programming. Red Bee Media also provides media management, design and support services, like encoding and editing video for mobile phone operators and VOD and IPTV operators such as the BBC iPlayer, Orange [3] and UK cable company Virgin Media.
Red Bee Media operates interactive television for the BBC, UKTV and others, and provides webmaster services for bbc.co.uk and other web sites. It markets complex design systems for television such as its sports analysis tool called Piero, which is a 3D sport graphic system designed to analyse sports on TV.
Through its BDS subsidiary, Red Bee also provides programme listings services.
The company purchased the Australian Caption Centre, an Australian subtitling company, for A$7.5 million (GBP3.2 million) in 2006.[4] This was relaunched as subsidiary Red Bee Media Australia in March 2007.[5]
Red Bee Media also opened a subtitling division in Paris, France in January 2007 where they subtitle for the French TV channel M6. The company has offices in London, Berlin, Paris, Seville and Sydney.
In March 2008, Red Bee Media acquired Titelbild Subtitling and Translation GmbH, the European multilingual subtitling and translation service providers enabling Red Bee Media to offer high quality translation services into any language as well as expanding Red Bee Media into the German market.
In October 2008, Red Bee Media acquired Mundovisión [MGI 2000 S.A.], the largest independent subtitling and audio description company in Spain. Alongside the recent acquisition of Titelbild in Germany, the addition of Mundovisión consolidated Red Bee Media’s position as Europe’s largest supplier of subtitling, signing and audio description services to the media industry.
References
- ^ Red Bee boosts content discovery with TV Genius buy
- ^ "BBC Broadcast sell-off approved"]. BBC News. 22 July 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4708749.stm. Retrieved 11 December 2008.
- ^ "Orange brings digital TV service to life" (Press release). Red Bee Media. 8 September 2007. http://www.redbeemedia.com/press/2007/orange_brings_digital_tv.shtml. Retrieved 2007-10-15.
- ^ "Red Bee Media Australia" (Press release). Red Bee Media Australia. http://www.redbeemedia.com.au/aboutus-australia.html. Retrieved 11 December 2008.
- ^ "Red Bee Media launches Australian Broadcast Centre" (Press release). Red Bee Media Australia. 6 June 2007. http://www.redbeemedia.com.au/news/070306_rbm_launches_austbrodctr.shtml. Retrieved 10 October 2007.
External links
Categories:- Media companies of the United Kingdom
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