From the MediaGuardian:

The BBC has pledged to work more closely with technology giants such as Microsoft and Apple as part of a plan to overhaul its website and prepare for a world where programmes will increasingly be watched on demand over the internet.

According to Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of new media and technology:

The pace is hotting up … We are already working on a radically different search engine and thinking about how we completely reinvent bbc.co.uk. It’s time to completely redesign it for a web 2.0 world.

It would be remarkable if the BBC outsourced its on demand services, but given cost constraints it would be a sensible approach. Why not give Amazon S3 a go, or Akamai. I’m not sure about the Web 2.0 reference, however. Methinks this is marketing speak: Web 2.0 is all about sharing and collaboration. Are the BBC really going to embrace that? For example, the way that blogs are evolving means that they often precede and ‘out-journal’ traditional news media, so news organisations need to get smarter.