Fans of British television have been waiting with bated breath for the BBC iPlayer app to cross the pond almost as long as the United States had been waiting for the arrival of Spotify. The iPad app isn’t washing ashore here just yet, but in an encouraging sign, it finally went global in 11 other Western European countries this week.
The Guardian is reporting that BBC Worldwide has officially launched its popular iPlayer app for the iPad in 11 more countries on Thursday -- although sadly, the United States is not one of them. That will come later this year, when the service also invades Canada and Australia as well.
So who exactly is getting the service? Glad you asked. iPlayer will be rolling out to 11 countries across Western Europe which includes Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. The BBC will offer a limited amount of free content courtesy of pre-roll ads and sponsors, with subscriptions available for €6.99 a month or €49.99 a year.
"We think we have a load of unmet demand for BBC and British content internationally," said BBC.com managing director Luke Bradley-Jones. "This is not a catch-up service: this is a video-on-demand service. We will have content from the last month, but also the best from the catalogue stretching back 50 to 60 years."
The global version of BBC’s iPlayer will also include a major feature that doesn’t exist in the U.K. version -- the ability to stream shows via 3G data connection as well as Wi-Fi, as well as being able to download programs to your iPad and watch them offline.
"There is at least 1,500 hours of content there from day one, and it will be growing by at least 100 hours a month," said Mark Smith, the global iPlayer launch director at BBC Worldwide. "Most audiences know the big shows like Top Gear or Doctor Who, but maybe not so much about other shows, so we have been working hard on how we surface that content."
Sounds great, right? So what’s the story with the delayed launch here in the colonies?
"The rights picture for the US is a little bit more complicated," said Bradley-Jones. "The nature of the agreements with our rights partners are different, and the windows across our existing business are older than they are in Europe. From our side, we have to jump through a few more of those commercial and legal hoops. We could have launched in the US with a product this week, but there would have been a few too many missing parts."
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(Image courtesy of The Guardian)
