BBC Planning To Launch Global iPlayer VoD Service

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is reportedly mulling over plans to come up with an international edition of its hugely popular iPlayer service, in a bid to allow global audiences to catch up with some of its top shows, according to BBC Worldwide, the corporation's profit-making arm. BBC Worldwide said that the move would help revamp its business model, and thereby help the corporation in raking in significant profits through its premium content."

Re:Is it still Windows only?

[ob0]

No, it's (mostly) Adobe only, using Flash for streaming (via RTMP) and AIR for downloaded programmes. The iPhone version uses HTTP streams. get_iplayer [linuxcentre.net] is a nice script to download iplayer content a little more permanently.

Re:hugely popular?

[ZERO1ZERO]

shrug. Works great for me. Find program I like. Click play. Enjoy.

Re:hugely popular?

[Jawju]

Not popular? It accounts for 5% of all UK network traffic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iplayer). Considering the other 95% is porn, that's still significantly popular.

Re:$10 per episode?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article: "Luke Bradley Jones, chief of the BBC Worldwide’s digital operations in the US, said in a statement: “Millions of people love Torchwood and would probably pay ten bucks an episode rather than two bucks”.

Or they'll laugh all their way to usenet or bittorrent. $10 per episode?!

Also the BBC is infamous for rediculously low budgets. They make the episodes for next to nothing then boast that people will pay $10 each. How about proper budgets and actually picking up popular shows for a new season? Hit shows often run one season and more than three is extremely rare. I've often wondered if they canceled shows based on popularity. In the US they seem to cancel them based on quality.

Re:Great!

[mofag]

Black books
League of gentlemen (so different from the similarly named the crappy film)
Spaced
Jam
Little Britain

Off you go :)

Re:BBC is a weird beastie

[mcrbids]

The BBC's charter has various requirements to show balance in political reporting and the government is denied direct mechanisms to interfere in editorial decisions. This generally works pretty well and the BBC is widely considered a fairly accurate, relatively unbiased news source.

unless you are an American Republican. I mentioned the Beeb as a fairly unbiased "outside" news source to a Republican friend of mine and the venom was immediate. Yes, I think they do a pretty good job. But it does seem that the Republican party today is somewhere to the right of the Nazi party.

PS: Godwin's law, blah blah...

Re:BBC is a weird beastie

[Angostura]

Weird beastie it may be, but you make two errors. It is not state-run in any meaningful sense and the state does not collect the money. Wikipedia has a decent summary of the licensing and collection regime here [wikipedia.org].

Re:Great!

[ardle]

BBC's sitcoms aren't great but they have loads of great "panel" shows: they're ostensibly quiz shows but participants are usually either comedians or victims.
Examples:

• Have I Got News For You: the first of this type - now has a "rotating" host since the original one had to leave after a prostitute/cocaine scandal (well, of course he had to turn up for one more show so that everyone else could make fun of him). The regular panelists are getting a bit lazy now - but the show has been running for more than 15 years. Think "The Daily Show" with less substance or heart but better insults.
• Mock The Week: a newer version of the same thing but with explicit stand-up parts because it's 100% comedians. Google "Frankie Boyle", is all I can say.
• Never Mind The Buzzcocks: music-oriented show where participants insult pop stars, frequently face-to-face. Chair seems to be rotating for this one now, too.
• Would I Lie To You: quite new, a bit better-behaved than the others - but still entertaining

I regularly watch all the above, even if they are "out-of-date"...

Re:BBC is a weird beastie

[Baki]

In fact a similar situation exists in many european countries: The german ARD and ZDF are are also state channels and by law all groups in society are represented and have influence. The same for dutch (although the details work differently) and swiss state TV.

For example in dutch state TV, political, religious or other groups get a # of hours depending on the number of members they have. There are strict limits regarding programming: a max. amount of advertisement and the nature thereof (not misleading, not hidden advertisement incorporated inside shows etc.), the division of time of entertainment, culture, news and politics etc.

I like this system because it ensures that next to commercial pulp a certain amount of guaranteed quality TV exists that is affordable for everyone (i.e. no need to subscribe to pay TV) and objective information (news, political commentaries of various opinions) is available to everyone, not dominated by big money or lobby groups, next to commercial and pay-TV offerings.

Re:Great!

[gbjbaanb]

If you like Frankie Boyle, you might like Argumental [uktv.co.uk] on Dave. quote:

I never thought I'd see the day where Frankie Boyle would be referred to as only the second most offensive ginger haired chap to appear on a stage and make people piss themselves laughing while at the same time leaving them feeling both disturbed and afraid for their own safety.

Buzzcocks - was brilliant in the early days, Mark Lamarr would tease bimbo contestants by telling them the answers and they *still* wouldn't get it right. Hilarious at times.

Have I got News for You - still good, but not nearly as good as the Radio4 version, the News Quiz. Its kind of a dumbed-down version for prime-time TV audiences who need pictures to go with their comedy.

People have mentioned quiz shows like QI, (even if it gets it wrong occasionally [uktv.co.uk]), but we do great stand-up shows like Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow [bbc.co.uk] (watch the one with Rhod Gilbert!), and also sketch shows like Armstrong and Miller [bbc.co.uk] (love Brabbins and Fyffe [youtube.com])

Or just browser through the archives on the BBC Comedy [bbc.co.uk] site.

Re:QI Please

[VoltageX]

It just started airing in Australia (series 6), so maybe the BBC have started to do deals with other networks.