BBC To Go Ahead with On Demand TV
LONDON - The governing body of the BBC has given the go-ahead for the launch of a catch-up TV service called iPlayer later this year. This will allow users to view on demand a range of BBC content within specific time windows.
This will be a massive test of a number of policy and technical aspects of using the internet to deliver content that has traditionally been broadcast.
Firstly, there is the question of a limiting access to a defined group of internet users. The content should really only be available for free to those who have paid the BBC licence fee (currently 135.50 GBP = approx 270 USD per annum). The BBC have been restricting viewing of other services to date via geolocation of IP addresses and will presumably do the same again. So if I use my home connection in London I would get the service but if I use my Cisco VPN gateway to the US presumably I would be blocked.
Secondly, there is the question of demand on the network. UK communications regulator Ofcom carried out a market impact assessment of the iPlayer proposals which predicted that on average broadband subscribers would use an extra 3GB of bandwidth a month consuming this new service. They predicted the cost of this extra network capacity as being somewhere between 400 and 800 million GBP over a five year period. Broadband access suppliers in the UK must find ways to manage this extra demand from a service that does not deliver any revenue directly to them.
Finally, this development is not in isolation but is happening alongside other commercial developments in the TV over IP space. The BBC’s public service rival in the UK, ITV, has already announced its own plans to deliver catch up TV very shortly. ITV is funded by commercial advertising rather than a license fee. And there are entirely new commercial services like Joost that are on the point of going live. In the broadcasting world there has been a recognition of differences between channels defined as ‘public service’ and those that are purely commercial, with rights and obligations associated with the public service status. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the internet space where no such rules exist.
Posted by Richard Allan at 02:30AM PST
Cisco Around the Web