Concerned with? Sure. NIH on the taxpayer's money? Probably not. Not like the BBC ever had its own homegrown tape format or anything, it got it all off-the-shelf.
Personally, as a British citizen and license-payer, I'm quite happy for the BBC to spend money on research and development (if well-thought and efficient; perhaps in this case it was misplaced), and I'm glad that the BBC is pushing technologies like video-over-internet compared to some of the more dinosaur-like traditional media companies.
Time to go watch some more BBC4 streaming over IP.