Wired for both data and sound at the BBC

FROM Bo Diddley to BBC Scotland, the track record of the corporation's new head of technology is nothing if not eclectic. American John Maxwell Hobbs has arrived at BBC Scotland in Glasgow with the job of ensuring the broadcaster's new £188 million HQ at Pacific Quay is totally wired.

One half of his CV seems soberly corporate, and perfect for the job. The 47-year-old from Indiana spent years in hi-tech Silicon Valley companies in the 1980s. He worked for mobile phone giant Ericsson in both New York and Sweden, focusing on mobile internet applications.

Yet at the same time, he has run a parallel career as a record producer and composer. Clients included legendary blues guitarist John Lee Hooker - "very patient, a very calm person", to Wendy O Williams, of punk group the Plasmatics. While Williams routinely sawed TV sets in half on stage with a chainsaw, Hobbs found her a pleasure to work with: "She came in and introduced herself to every person in the crew, and made a specific effort to learn their names and what they did. That was really quite interesting. It was diplomacy you wouldn't expect from a sledgehammer-wielding woman with a three-foot Mohawk."

Hobbs sees parallels between his two activities: "I'm a composer and I've used technology for a long time. Producing art, theatre and concerts involves a great deal of technology."

However, he has a rather more immediate task in front of him - ensuring the TV and radio output of BBC Scotland works seamlessly when the corporation moves to Pacific Quay in the spring. Hobbs spotted the job while living in Stockholm at the home he shares with wife Lauren Amazeen, an arts writer.

He had stayed on in Europe to launch his own consultancy after a three-year assignment as chief information architect at Ericsson.

The changes at BBC Scotland will represent a major leap in the way journalists work. Hobbs is planning for a world where film is transmitted wirelessly back to base, where radio and online journalists can feed on the raw material coming into the building.

He says: "Pacific Quay is not just the building, but what it represents. It is the start of a completely tapeless BBC that allows everybody to share their content across all platforms. Someone comes in with something they've shot on video, walk in the front door and hand it to somebody from information and archive who starts to put it into the digital library.

"By the time they reach their desk they can start logging. Then somebody from radio can search that and say 'I'd like to get the audio clip from this point to this point'. That's a big difference from dubbing it onto tape or burning it on to CD."

Pacific Quay's 188m price tag has paid for a well-muscled building with no less than 23 editing suites and three Dolby 5.1 dubbing theatres for pristine sound production, one of which can handle 35mm film. Pacific Quay will also make programmes in high definition.

BBC Scotland's journalists will, Hobbs says, be able to access raw material from their desktop and use it for whatever service they work for - TV, radio, online. The corporation is buying the Interplay system from Avid for TV desktop editing and VCS-Vera to replace the Radioman and Dalet systems used by radio reporters.

However, as the prime job of journalists involves going out to acquire stories and interviews, Hobbs envisages major changes. The BBC is already trialling satellite phones which can send back audio interviews wirelessly, and has been talking to Siemens about how both TV and radio footage can be relayed to the office more effectively. Siemens showed BBC Scotland its ABC box - standing for Always Best Connected - offering journalists the option of a wireless broadband connection, or the 3G and 2.5G systems used by the mobile phone industry. "It simply looks and figures out what the best and most economic connection you have in whatever location you're in - it will serve the best purpose."

Hobbs draws parallels with Sweden, where TV journalists have made use of the high-speed wireless broadband connections that link parts of the country, and says even his Stockholm house has a 24Mbps connection "which is considered slow."

With BBC director general Mark Thompson expected to open the new showcase building in late summer Hobbs admits there will likely be "interesting headaches" in the weeks ahead and that wires and wizardry will not solve all the ills: "My attitude towards technology is that it doesn't solve everything. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should."