BBC Sport kicks off archive overhaul with £1m storage tender

Broadcaster searches for one provider to archive its sport content over a two-year period

BBC Sport is on the hunt for an IT firm to provide an integrated storage solution for its BBC Sport production library.

The contract, which is set to last two years, will be worth between £500,000 and £1m excluding VAT, and will see the single provider supply archiving equipment to the Sport arm of the BBC.

The BBC stipulated that the selected supplier must be able to support a range of content producers and librarian staff at the BBC as well as be capable of supporting other broadcasters in the future should BBC Sport work with outside firms.

"Sports broadcasting has always been innovative and that is what BBC Sport requires from the new archive. The goal is to improve the quality of output by utilising content across all platform operations," said the recently published tender document.

"The storage solution will offer a cost-effective, scalable model to meet the demands of a rights-based sports broadcaster where access to content is of a fast turnaround nature."

The successful bidder's products should be able to address a changing technology landscape (and minimise the cost of the change to the BBC) and must be compatible with current BBC IT systems.

The broadcaster added that the supplier should be able to provide close integration with existing BBC asset management systems and that migration of legacy content held on other storage products - including those using tape - should also be a possibility.