Media Giant BBC Credits Digital Identity Strategy as a Key Success Factor
Challenge
The BBC needed to transition from an anonymous broadcaster to a data-driven media organization by encouraging users to sign in, all while handling massive traffic spikes (up to 10x normal load) during global events.
Results
By implementing a unified identity platform, the BBC successfully scaled to handle over 1 billion sign-ins per year and maintained 100% availability during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Objective
The BBC’s digital strategy aimed to reinvent the organization for a new generation by moving from one-to-many broadcasting to one-to-one personal engagement. The objective was to create a secure, high-performance identity service that would encourage millions of users to register and sign in, enabling the BBC to provide a more relevant, personalized experience.
Challenge
The BBC faces unique scaling challenges, with traffic that can surge instantly based on breaking news or major sporting events (e.g., the World Cup or Glastonbury). During the pandemic, the BBC saw a 10x increase in traffic for its educational and news services. They needed an identity solution that could handle hundreds of thousands of concurrent sign-ins without latency, while ensuring that user data remained secure and compliant with privacy standards.
Solution
The BBC implemented the Ping Identity (formerly ForgeRock) platform to create BBC ID. This cloud-native identity solution serves as the front door" for all BBC digital products. The architecture was designed for extreme scale and resilience, utilizing automated deployment and monitoring to manage performance. The platform supports social registration and single sign-on (SSO), making it easy for users to stay signed in across their TV, mobile, and web devices.
Results
BBC ID has become one of the most successful identity implementations in the media industry, with over 45 million registered accounts. The platform proved its robustness during the 2020 pandemic, managing a massive influx of users with zero downtime. By moving to a signed-in model, the BBC has gained deep insights into user preferences, allowing them to better compete with global streaming giants through highly personalized content delivery.
Digital identity is one of the key things that made us successful during the pandemic... it allowed us to be a lot more relevant to our audience.
BBC Digital Leadership
(via Ping Identity Blog)
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