Red Bee Media, formerly Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services (EBMS), is an international broadcasting and media services company and the largest access provider in Europe. Red Bee has its headquarters in London, England, with branch offices in Glasgow, Cardiff, MediaCityUK in Salford and Newcastle upon Tyne, and international offices in Australia, France, Spain, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Canada, United States and Abu Dhabi. It has 2,500 employees worldwide across eight media hubs and distributes over 2.7 million hours of programming each year worldwide. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ericsson.
Clients include television broadcasters such as the BBC, Canal+, Channel 4, GB News, ITV, Sky, TV4, TV5Monde, and UKTV, as well as brands such as Barclays, Bacardi and Hyundai. Red Bee Media transmits over 500 television streams on analogue, digital terrestrial, digital satellite, 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 Lifestyle and have a presence in over 180 countries and territories. It handles the majority of video on demand (VOD) services in the UK, including Channel 4 (All 4), Channel 5 (My5) and UKTV (UKTV Play).
History and locations
While Red Bee Media originates from BBC Broadcast in the United Kingdom, the company stems from Creative Broadcast Services, which was jointly owned by Australia-based Macquarie Capital Alliance Group and Macquarie Bank, and was set up specifically for the purchase of the former BBC operation.
In August 2011 Red Bee Media purchased TV Genius, a software company that specialises in content discovery across the internet, TV and connected devices.
On 1 July 2013, Ericsson announced it would acquire Red Bee Media to complement the company's previous acquisitions in the broadcast and media industry: the broadcast services division of Technicolor, Tandberg Television, HyC Group, Fabrix Systems and Microsoft Mediaroom. On 30 September, the transaction was referred to the Competition Commission, amid fears the deal would reduce competition in the television channel playout sector. The deal was cleared by the commission on 27 February 2014, and Ericsson completed its acquisition of Red Bee Media on 12 May. The company rebranded under its parent's brand on 1 June 2015.
On 9 November 2017, it was announced that Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services would be renamed as Red Bee Media and become an independent business fully owned by Ericsson. The move was reported to be to clear the way for a sale of the division which has been retained by Ericsson.
United Kingdom
Red Bee's predecessor BBC Broadcast Limited 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 £166 million to Creative Broadcast Services Limited, a company set up specifically for the purchase and jointly owned by Australia-based Macquarie Capital Alliance Group and Macquarie Bank Limited. 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. Red Bee Creative is the creative agency that operates within Red Bee Media. Based in White City, Red Bee Creative was responsible for the creation of various entertainment brands including BBC Sport, UKTV's Dave and BT Sport. They have also produced creative campaigns for Nissan, Oasis, Netflix and Weston's Cider.
Australia
In 2006 the company purchased the commercial operations of the Australian Caption Centre (ACC) in 2006 for A$7.5 million (GBP3.2 million), rebranding them as Red Bee Media Australia in March 2007. The remaining part of the ACC became the not-for-profit Media Access Australia.
Germany
In March 2008 Red Bee Media acquired Titelbild Subtitling and Translation GmbH, a multilingual subtitling and translation service providers, enabling Red Bee Media to offer translation services into many languages as well as expanding Red Bee Media into the German market.