An ordinary guy trying to make a difference
The face behind the FAQs
That wonderfully British institution the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) offers a TV catch up service powered by it's own free downloadable media player called iPlayer.
Once you've downloaded and installed it you simply choose the BBC program you want to watch that you missed or maybe want to see again and hey presto. Well that is of course assuming you're based in the UK.
It seems the BBC is still working on some mumbo jumbo to allow this service to be available for use outside the UK. What grates me is that everyone in the UK HAS to pay a license fee of £139.50 to the BBC every year regardless of whether you watch the BBC or not (just because you have a TV that is capable of receiving BBC channels you HAVE to pay - that's one of the barmy laws we unfortunately have to suffer).
Now I missed last Saturday's Dr. Who as I was out of the country. "No problem" I thought "I'll use iPlayer to watch it" which is when I first discovered this issue. Now the fact of the matter is that I have paid for the right to watch BBC programs courtesy of my license fee but what good is this if you can't do this abroad?
Heard of the BBC World Service? Shame it's only limited to radio in this day and age.
Bottom line is this - if you're a fan of any BBC program (Dr. Who, The Apprentice, Eastenders, etc.) and planning a holiday abroad make sure you set the video or PVR to record your shows as iPlayer is as much use as a chocolate teapot abroad.
Maybe I should sue the BBC for the false slogan on the iPlayer website:
"Making the unmissable, unmissable"
of maybe it's time Sir Alan Sugar said to the chairman of the BBC:
"You're fired".
Hi Cliff,
Whilst I can appreciate your frustration, I think you are confusing two separate issues here; Broadcasting rights and the license fee. They are in effect completely separate issues.
When purchasing the rights to broadcast a show the BBC is given only a limited territory for broadcast. Similar with content produced by the BBC, if it were to broadcast it on the internet to any audience then no other network would purchase the broadcast rights due to competition it would receive from BBCs online player. I'm not going to sell your product if you are going to compete with me in my market. In effect BBC would be diluting it's own licensing revenue if it were to follow this path.
The only solution would be to provision some sort of limited access to british (tv tax paying) residents so they could access this content abroad. As well as being a huge logistical nightmare this would incur huge costs (thereby driving up licensing costs further), would be open to people illegally accessing content and would only benefit a very small number of people.
Have you ever thought of getting a slingbox? This might just be the solution your looking for (if you want to see it live) en.wikipedia.org/.../Slingbox
On the topic of the TV license I'm 100% with you and so are the EU Competition Commission (this is in effect an illegal Government subsidiary)... hopefully we'll see the end of it in at the end of this license (to charge the license) period. At the very least we'll see equal distribution of funds across all the public broadcasters.
That said it's hard to imagine that BBC would be able to have grown to be the hugely successful organisation that it is without the subsidiary. Infact it's not hard to imagine UK television being flooded by US produced content had the government not provided the protection to the BBC so it could compete on the world stage.
Anyways thats just my 2cents
Thanks
Mark Thompson ;)
Thanks for the reply Mark and the clarification.
So why not make an iPlayer download available for ONLY UK residents? You install the player when you are in the UK and then when you travel you watch the programs as you already have the player installed?