An understated yet impactful element of the BBC’s relevance and trustworthiness strategies in the context of the evolving media landscape is the organization’s Research andt (R&D) division. Aythora Jatin, a technologist whose career covers an array of engineering sectors, from diamond mining to public broadcasting, leads these initiatives. As public broadcasting becomes ever more technologically advanced, BBC R&D is not only keeping pace—they’re aiding in setting the pace.
“For the public purpose, we, as the BBC together, strive and aim for bounding the public good. In that respect. We do more research and development for society,” said Aythora. For him and his team, that is creating and fortifying solutions and systems that facilitate the advancement of media technology for the public good, aiding the general populace at little to no cost.
Interdisciplinary Learning
Central to Aythora’s philosophy of innovation is the multidisciplinary nature of his career, Yehsd Aythora. Every time he changes jobs, he changes industries. “Curiosity and the ability to learn play an important role,” he characterized, reminding us that a technologist’s ‘superpower’ rests in adaptability and viewpoint. Oh, and not to mention, a jack of all trades always able to carry insights through fields, turn connections sectors.
An example of cross-industry thinking is Aythora’s work at De Beers, where he helped develop Forevermark, a system used to authenticate diamonds. As such, that experience now helps inform his work at the BBC, especially in dealing with misinformation. “If a piece of BBC content is appearing on social media platforms, you want to be sure of where it has actually come from,” he says.
Combating Misinformation with Content Credentials
In the age of deepfakes and digital forgeries, ensuring the authenticity of news content is crucial. To address this challenge, the BBC R&D team collaborated with Microsoft and its Chief Scientific Officer, Eric Horvitz, to create Content Credentials—a method for establishing the provenance of digital media.
The system analyzes metadata such as weather conditions, timestamps, and shadows to verify if images have been edited or taken out of context. “The verifiability of content has become quite an important aspect of our daily lives,” Aythora notes. “We often come across news that we question.”
This is significant because it marks the adoption of Content Credentials as a formal technical standard by one of its founding members, the BBC, and the C2PA consortium, which includes Microsoft and Adobe. The first story published by the BBC News Verify team using the C2PA standard was in March 2024.
Content technologies are shifting rapidly from research to implementation. “The content credentials capability and the standards that we’ve invented are now being adopted by most of the large technology organizations, including OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft,” added Aythora.
BBC R&D Exploring Younger Engagement
The new music portal serves as a virtual interactive performance space through a deal with Bristol-based tech firm Condense. As an effort to engage younger audiences with different formats, BBC R&D is exploring other initiatives as well. For the fans of the BBC Radio 1 New Music Show, the portal allows users to attend live performances as avatars within a 3D environment and move around and interact in real time.
“From our side the challenge was, how can we make that performance much more immersive so we’re not playing to an audience that’s much older that’s going to listen to the radio?” Aythora said. Users only need an internet connection to access the platform, which works with any device. He suggested that as VR headsets become more widely available, this will greatly enhance the interactivity of the platform.
AI, Speech Recognition, and Beyond
Aythora mentions that at one point, the BBC in-house algorithm was able to achieve a staggering 85% accuracy with transcribing audio content. “We take it for granted today because we have access to technology that can do speech-to-text, but 10 years ago that wasn’t the case.”
The technology has surely come a long way. At that time, there were no resources available that provided effective speech-to-text services, making the functionality seem impossible, especially at the rate the services were being provided by others.
Currently, the BBC incorporates its proprietary AI systems alongside leading industry solutions to automatically process subtitles for BBC Sounds. As a future focus, the team is working on AI systems for image and video forensic analysis to automatically detect edits for content verification.
Innovation with Purpose: Treading within the Boundaries of Profit
In contrast to mercantile technology empires, the BBC is subject to rigorous financial boundaries. “We are a public service organization. We don’t have an endless amount of money available to us,” remarks Aythora. This underscores the prominence of low-cost innovation.
Patience and humility, alongside confidence in oneself, go a long way in facilitating innovation. Aythora states, “Don’t assume that your idea is the right idea and the best idea. Validate it with various people to build confidence.” Sometimes, as he put it, “It’s only a matter of time and context before the idea becomes more relevant”; waiting for the proper context is all that is needed.
Aythora’s philosophy on leadership emphasizes relentless perseverance. “Self-belief is not instant; it becomes a belief over a period of time. It’s a journey that we go through.”
That enduring journey, sustained by trust and a strong commitment to the public good, along with abiding curiosity, puts the BBC at the leading edge of media innovation, even as the pace of change in the digital world accelerates.
