Yes to the iPlayer

I was about to start writing a post about Joost when something much more exciting jumped into my inbox - the BBC iPlayer. No not the actual iPlayer, I still haven’t used it - but the fact that the BBC Trust have provisionally said “You know what guys - YES go ahead and make it happen” or words to that effect.

In fact you can read exactly what they said by visiting the BBC Trust website and reading the press release for yourself. This is one of the most exciting bits of news since the iPlayer was first announced (when it was still the iMP).

The official, final announcement will be on 2 May 2007 but given that they’ve said yes provisionally, it will take some SERIOUS lobbying from government, OfCom and the commercial sector for it not to go ahead. In fact even then I still think it will go ahead. The only thing that might stop it is if a critical mass of people phoned or wrote to say “we don’t want the iPlayer”.

There will be a couple of changes to the original proposals but nothing so major it makes it worthless. In fact some of them are just plain sensible and I’d like to have seen there in the first place. The changes are:

Storage window for seven-day TV catch-up over the internet should not be wholly excluded because it creates public value; but should be limited to 30 days. The BBC Executive’s application proposed 13 weeks for this feature.

Series stacking: The public value of allowing access to free content needs to be balanced against the value of the BBC’s secondary rights and potential for negative market impact. The Trust agrees with Ofcom that there is a need for a tighter definition of which series would be offered for stacking.

Platform-agnostic approach: As proposed, the TV catch-up service on the internet relies on Microsoft technology for the digital rights management (DRM) framework. The Trust will require the BBC Executive to adopt a platform-agnostic approach within a reasonable timeframe. This requires the BBC to develop an alternative DRM framework to enable users of other technology, for example, Apple and Linux, to access the on-demand services.

Genres included in non-DRM audio downloads: Audio-books and classical music should be excluded from the non-DRM downloads. The public value to be created is not, in the Trust’s view, sufficient to justify the potential market impact of allowing downloads of these genres.

Protection of children from unsuitable content: The Trust will require the BBC Executive to present options to ensure this.

Of all of these the platform independence is the most impressive - OK I’m a Windows user primarily but I do use a MAC now and then and am considering one for my next computer - but more than that it’s great that the BBC Trust have acknowledged the importance of platform independence AND a decent cross-platform DRM service.

I wonder if the BBC are a big enough player to convince Apple to let them licence Fair Play (is that the Apple one) for the iPlayer. I have heard they’re thinking about licencing it to third parties - this could be a useful start - especially when the Beeb release a commercial version for the international market.

It’s also nice to see that at least some of the shows (radio/tv) will be DRM free.

The iPlayer is still going to have to go through a few more twists, turns, hoops and tests before it can be released to the general public but this is a VERY good start.

Oh and if you haven’t seen the iPlayer yet - Think Pink!

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