Indeed, the BBC (and before the '90s the enginnering department of IBA (the old regulator of ITV and Channel 4)) has been always at the forefront of innovation.

Indeed, the BBC (and before the '90s the enginnering department of IBA (the old regulator of ITV and Channel 4)) has been always at the forefront of innovation. Succesful inventions used widely includes inventing teletext and NICAM, while there are also failed ones like an analog satellite standard called D-MAC and its high-definition sibling called HD-MAC. They also tend to participate into producing standards like DVB, the MPEG video family and MP3. Proably the BBC's underestimated contribution that they have done is on responsive design: while they aren't the only ones who have thought of that, the BBC website has become the model website of responsive design in an era where CSS media queries were uncommon.