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Anthony Rose replaced at YouView

by Sarah Griffiths on 9 December 2010, 10:07

Tags: YouView

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WhoView

YouView's, Anthony Rose has ‘stepped down' as CTO of the BBC-backed IPTV venture, amid rumours that his managerial skills left a lot to be desired.

Rose will be replaced by Youssef (Sef) Tuma as head of technical delivery, who has experience of delivering similar programmes recently, according to YouView.

Rose will "continue to inform product development in an advisory capacity," according to the company.

He has so far helped to lead the building of the platform's UI, has established a framework for content providers plus developed the core technical specifications for developing YouView set top boxes.

However, The Daily Telegraph reported that sources close to YouView said Rose was pulled from his post because of his ‘lacking' managerial skills.

One TV exec close to YouView told the newspaper: "Anthony Rose was brought on for his technology vision. However, when it came to managing a large team, the YouView executive thought his skills were lacking and the role of chief technology officer would be suited to someone else. The visionary part of the development is now over and a team is in place to take YouView forward."

A spokesperson for the venture, which is co-owned by the Beeb, ITV, Channel 4, Talk Talk, Five and BT reportedly said the decision about Rose stepping down was reached mutually.

BT Vision's ex operations director, Andrew Burdess has been hired as director of operations at YouView. He will be responsible for developing all consumer facing aspects of the platform and ensuring technical resilience of back end services.

Greg McCall remains launch director and Jeff Hunter continues in his role as chief architect.

Richard Halton, You View's chief exec, said: "These changes are about strengthening our technology and operations teams to ensure we deliver YouView in good time and in great shape. We are ensuring that in key project management areas such as technology and operations we are expanding capacity to ensure we meet the demands of this exciting project.

"As we move into this next phase of our development I want to pay tribute to the brilliant work Anthony Rose has done to shape the consumer proposition and I am pleased that he has agreed to continue to advise the project."



HEXUS Forums :: 1 Comment

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I don't mind who is running YouView as long as it ends up being a success and comes out soon. I've seen lots of comments suggesting it is a waste of time but I think most are missing the point. Many seem to think that GoogleTV, Boxee Box etc will be far superior but where is the TV tuner on them? They may offer a better web video experience but I think most consumers would rather have a unit that allows them to view and record multiple broadcast HD channels with limited web capability.

Whilst I can't predict exactly what the YouView hardware partners will end up releasing it's looking very likely that there will be boxes with Freeview HD+ capability built in on top of the YouView features. In addition I think it's also highly likely that there will be other features added such as network media streaming and probably some online video streaming too. Although these extra features might not be in the YouTube spec it's not unreasonable to expect them to be offered on some units because these features are already built into some existing Freeview HD+ boxes.