The familiar cry of “there's nothing to watch on television” will soon become an anachronism if the BBC's latest hi-tech attempt to secure its future takes off. The corporation yesterday got the green light to launch its long-promised video on demand service, which will allow viewers to catch up with any TV or radio show from the past seven days.
The BBC iPlayer – almost three years in development – will launch within months, with executives banking on it to help maintain the corporation's relevance in the digital age. The service will go head to head with Channel 4's 4OD download offering and ITV's version due to launch in April.
The download service, essentially a TV version of the BBC's “listen again” radio service, which allows licence fee payers to tune in to live radio or any show from the previous seven days over the web, will transfer selected shows to computers to be viewed at will.
More than two million viewers are already familiar with “time shifting” their viewing, using personal hard disk recorders such as Sky Plus.
Broadband-based services are seen as the next step but the iPlayer service will also be available via cable TV.
The BBC Trust, which replaced the governors, has taken an even firmer line than the regulator on some of the issues.
Viewers will be able to download shows from the previous seven days but the material will be automatically deleted after 30 days, rather than the 13 weeks proposed by BBC executives. Audio downloads of classical music performances and audiobooks will be banned after the trust agreed they could seriously harm commercial rivals.
The trust also agreed that a tighter definition was required over the ability to save entire runs of popular programmes to viewers' hard drives. It was concerned that a limitless library of programmes could damage the BBC's own commercial prospects and those of its rivals. It also demanded that the BBC made a version available for Apple Mac computers and other operating systems, to complement the Microsoft-based PC system. It also plans a “syndication policy” covering the BBC making programmes available via other distribution networks such as Google Video.
The iPlayer project, which will cost £131.2m over five years, is seen as a key plank of the “Martini media” strategy of the director general, Mark Thompson, aimed at BBC programmes available “anytime, anyplace, anywhere” via a variety of devices.
The trust yesterday predicted that by 2011 almost a third of viewing would be “on demand”.
Channel 4 launched 4OD last November, offering the majority of its shows for between 99p and £1.99.
ITV will make available most of its programmes from the previous month for free, supported by advertising, when it launches its broadband offering in April, but will charge for “premium content” such as sports events.
There will be eight weeks of consultation before the provisional conclusions are rubbed stamped, with the iPlayer likely to be operational by this summer.
What can I watch on the BBC iPlayer?
After downloading the service viewers will be shown a schedule displaying all the BBC's shows from the previous seven days. Once downloaded, viewers will be able to store the programmes for up to 30 days before watching them. After that they will be automatically deleted from the hard drive.
