Package Description
Band: D
Contract type: 12 month FTC
Location: London based role with some flexibility - i.e. hybrid working
Job Title: In-house title is Commercial, Rights and Business Affairs Manager
Salary: anticipated salary up to £68,000p,a, (this is inclusive of London Weighting £5,164), depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.
We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.
Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
Benefits - We offer a competitive salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 26 days annual leave (1 of which is a corporation day) with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.
Job Introduction
We are looking for a Commercial Rights and Business Affairs Manager to join the BBC Commercial, Rights and Business Affairs (CRBA) in the Digital, Consumer Tech and Innovation legal and business affairs team. This is a maternity cover role (12 months) based in London.
Commercial Rights and Business Affairs manages and connects the BBC’s intellectual property, strategic and business interests through expert negotiation, contracting and commercial deal-making. Commercial Rights and Business Affairs is a connector across the entire BBC Group, with teams embedded in divisions, genres, nations and regions.
Commercial Rights and Business Affairs makes sure rights are managed appropriately, deals are negotiated and agreed in the interests of the BBC, and business affairs are conducted legally and efficiently.
The Digital, Consumer Tech and Innovation legal and business affairs team within Commercial Rights and Business Affairs are subject matter legal and business experts on audience-facing digital products and consumer technology that drives those products. The team gives legal and business affairs support for BBC’s audience-facing digital products such as BBC iPlayer, Sounds, BBC News app and BBC Online, connected TV, BBC Bitesize and Children’s apps) and we help procure the technology that drives those consumer products. We also give legal and business affairs support for digital and technology innovation activities (experimentation, early prototype user testing, research and development, tech development collaborations and tech transfer licensing in areas such as AI, generative AI and new immersive and personalized formats for our audience). And we give legal and business affairs support for one of the world’s largest multimedia archives. The team guides teams across the BBC on digital, consumer technology and innovation projects.
This is an exciting opportunity at a pivotal time for the BBC. You will be instrumental in helping the BBC to experiment, innovate and keep BBC’s digital products competitive.
All CRBA colleagues are 'agile workers’ and our expectation is that they will work an average of 2-3 day per week in BBC buildings.
Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities
As Commercial Rights and Business Affairs Manager, you will:
• provide pro-active legal and business affairs support to BBC’s Archive Technology & Services, archive editorial, product, design, engineering and innovation teams on strategic department, projects, partnerships, procurements, our digital product offerings and online audience engagement strategies, innovation initiatives and research and development.
• advise internal stakeholders on key issues and risks in contracts and projects, and make sure that our agreements reflect our internal standards and strategy.
• draft and negotiate a variety of agreements including licensing BBC content to a variety of external educational, cultural and technological organisations.
• actively shape and develop legal commercial strategy to protect our intellectual property and support our digital product offerings and innovation activities.
• proactively involve and work alongside other internal teams as necessary, for example: editorial, fair trading; information rights legal, brand protection and other commercial rights and business affairs colleagues.
• support and lead on team initiatives to improve and develop streamlined, efficient and scalable contracting processes that helps the team to prioritise work and gives the team flexibility and freedom to move quickly.
Knowledge, Skills, Training & Experience
We are looking for a junior to mid-level lawyer who has a passion for technology and innovation with demonstrated understanding of the UK digital market and transactional experience advising on tech, although we may also consider candidates with more or less experience. You must have the right to work in the UK.
In addition to the Job Description, to be successful in this role the following skills, knowledge, qualification and experience are essential:
o You’ll have a broad understanding of intellectual property rights including copyright in content and ideally an understanding of commissioning/production of content and experience of handling content use requests.
o You’ll bring an understanding of digital and tech procurements and have sophisticated negotiating and contracting skills. You will be familiar with the BBC’s digital output. You will be comfortable working alongside the Senior Lawyer and independently on the end-to-end process of negotiating, drafting and producing a wide range of agreements in the areas of digital procurements, tech licensing, collaboration agreements, content licensing and will understand and be able to apply related BBC policy and strategy. You will be adept at learning and understanding what matters to the business and using that to give practical and commercially focussed legal, rights and business affairs advice in easy to understand language. Added to this will be your fluency with relevant industry practices and legislation, including data protection law, consumer protection law and general contract law, and strong legal drafting capabilities.
o You are excited about digital, consumer tech and innovation and media, the businesses we support, the sector we are working in and the competitive, regulatory and policy factors that affect it.
o You have a collaborative, flexible and positive attitude, are willing to learn and help steer the team to work well together and get the job done. You are always ready to share knowledge with your colleagues and you will communicate ideas clearly and make sure everyone understands.
o You are happy to help others understand issues and risks and have self-awareness of when you need to get further information or advice and escalate.
o A legal qualification is essential (NQ-6 PQE+), as is proven experience of commercial deal making, digital and tech procurement and licensing (out) of intellectual property in a media/broadcasting environment.
In addition to the Job Description, the following are desirable:
o a willingness to roll up your sleeves, clear blockers, think creatively.
o strong negotiating skills with the ability to balance deadlines and short-term contract requirements with the long-term vision and priorities of the business.
o familiarity with open source licensing.
o transactional experience involving AI/machine learning.
o experience of rights clearance and copyright licensing for digital and consumer tech.
o experience of procuring cloud based and digital services for public authorities.
o familiarity with emerging technologies, generative AI, data and personalisation, web games and apps, streaming video services and social media.