Innovation in broadcasting creates new experiences for viewers and listeners, helps broadcasters to save costs or develop further revenue opportunities and can generate spill-over benefits for the wider audio-visual sector. Investing in applied research and development is an important part of the BBC’s remit and accounts for an annual spend of around £20m.

We examined the benefits of the BBC’s R&D activities using bottom-up microeconomic techniques on a selection of the BBC’s projects. Based on these case studies, we estimated the benefits of the BBC’s R&D investment across its entire project portfolio. Our conservative estimate suggests that every pound spent by the R&D department creates benefits in the range of £5 – £9. The report is available here.