BBC's iPlayer App Goes International: TV Revolution?
6/15/2011 by: Theo Valich
BBC recently announced that they're making streams of their most popular TV and Radio channels, as well as pre-recorded TV shows - available to international users for a lowly monthly subscription of $10.
Even though it is widely believed that the largest TV network resides in the US or China, truth is a bit different. With 23,000 employees British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the largest broadcasting network. The Beeb is a no-ads, license only network which lives on a yearly license of $232 for every household with TV or a radio in Great Britain. All of the money is spent in content production, resulting in breathtaking documentaries (such as BBC Earth) or worldwide known TV phenomena's such as Dr. Who and Top Gear.
BBC's iPlayer enables you to watch all the episodes broadcasted in the past 7 days.
As a part of its strategy to handle the debt made by extravagant spending of former management, BBC decided to increase the available revenue. Given that the broadcaster is banned by law to introduce any sort of commercials, the company decided to deploy technology. Result of such effort was iPlayer, which enables owners of BBC license to watch TV content on their own computer.
Now, all of that content is becoming available to international users of Apple's products, such as an iPad or an iPhone. We're not certain will BBC broadcast live TV, but the opportunity to watch Formula One commentated by Martin Brundle and David Coulthard is something I personally would not miss for the world. Following the successful rollout in several countries in Western Europe, BBC plans to expand iPlayer to global markets. For starters, international users would be able only to see BBC-created content (BBC channels show international hit shows such as Two and Half Men, The Apprentice, all-night American Dad marathon etc.).
If BBC succeeds in generating all the extra revenue and earns a profit, there will be no doubt that other TV networks should consider Internet as their best friend in yielding extra revenue through a subscription based model. We have no doubt in our minds telecoms and cable operators won't be happy about that.
Tags:
BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation, Beeb, Dr. Who, Top Gear, BBC World Service, World Service, BBC World News, BBC International, BBC Earth, Wonderland, Nurse Jackie
© 2009 - 2011 Bright Side Of News*, All rights reserved.