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The BBC recently launched the iPlayer worldwide, which took the form of a subscription service with access to the Beeb’s back catalogue. We’ve also seen the BBC ink deals with both LoveFilm and Netflix for archived shows. Now Aunty is mulling creating its own pay-per-view archive service for the UK.
The controversial plan will mean viewers will be able to watch episodes of programs after they’ve expired past the seven-day catch up window, and access old shows like Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses. We’re apparently only talking about a small fee here, although the exact amount hasn’t been suggested.
Considering we already have to pay £145.50 for a TV Licence, which essentially funds the BBC, it could cause quite a stir to attempt to charge more. But putting all that content online and making it available for streaming isn’t cheap and the BBC is looking to cover its costs.
Would you cough up a small fee, say 49p per episode, to watch back-catalogue stuff from the BBC? Or would you rather get it as part of an on-demand subscription package like Netflix? Then again, do you think the entire BBC archive should be made available for free online — charging for it is simple outrageous?
I wouldn’t mind paying to watch the odd episode of Blackadder again, but then I’m already a LoveFilm and Netflix subscriber anyway. Whatever happens, we’ll not see anything implemented until 2016 at the earliest, so no need to get your knickers in a twist just yet. [The Guardian]
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They’ve got a bloody cheek
License fee. More than enough.
Got a cheek to even think of doing this.
Is it really that different from selling them on DVD?
Suppose not, now that I think of it.
Think the problem here is that it was once “free”.
I always liked the BBC, but lately they have been dispointing me. These are the problems I am having with them.
F1 sold partially to Sky
iPlayer lack of support via browser on ICS and no working app for it also.
iPlayer not showing the back catalogue already (this seemed like a no brainer).
You have to remember that sky threatened to sue bbc and the goverment, since the publicly funded service would not allow skyy, the big coporate company couldnt make money, after making billions.
and also remember, if they made it free, nobody would buy their shows, and there would be not enough money to fund new shows…
I thought that the TV licence was supposed to fund the new shows, DVD and Blu Ray sales I kind of agree with it because they have to pay for media distribution/creation.
That being said I had an idea, if they raised the price by £10 in order to cover this back catalogue option, I think they would encounter little resistance.
The production of these shows was originally funded by the licence fee, and therefore belong to the UK public. The BBC has no right to charge us for them again
Surely revenues from the international version of iPlayer should be able to cover the cost of streaming archive content to UK customers.
I can see where you’re coming from with that, and it was my first thought too, but what about when you buy a BBC series on DVD? My licence fee went towards making Blackadder (well, my parents’ licence fee did) but if I want to watch that again I have to go out and buy it on DVD (or I guess I could watch G.O.L.D instead as it’s always on there).
I’m not saying that the idea of charging PPV for archive material is right, but it’s not as a crazy as it first sounds.
Yeh, every licence payer should get a free copy of every BBC show on DVD, Blu-Ray, or digital download according to their needs.
Meanwhile in the real world the licence fee of 40p a day covering 12 TV channels and 56 radio stations is already better value for money than anything anybody else in UK broadcasting delivers.
Well it isn’t that good value for money, given you don’t have a choice as to whether you want to pay it if you want to watch TV Legally, even if you don’t watch BBC programmes.
At least it gives you choice.
At the moment there is no way to legally access the back catalogue, so if you want to you can’t. This gives you option but you would have to pay to get that choice. If you don’t pay you are in the same boat as before – no worse off.
I don’t see what the issue is; unless the time programmes are currently available on the iplayer for is reduced.
This is great news. It means all the old programs will now end up on torrent sites.
It would make iPlayer far more complete as a product, so I think a small fee isn’t a bad idea. I’d rather a pay-per-view as opposed to subscription service, with discounts for full series, etc.
I would be totally up for this, but I think even 49p an episode is too pricey. I can happily watch two or three programs in a sitting with the current catalogue – think what I would do with the whole of Mock the Week available to me!
I’d say something like 20p an hour would work. They could even do a prepayment scheme where you buy credits to use watching programs, and you could gift them to people. That was it’s cheaper to watch a 30 minute program like NMTB than a 90 minute thing like Sherlock, which makes total sense.
Honestly, it’s a good idea. But BBC repeats that many of their shows, I can just watch it all for free on TV.
Based on £0.05 per gigabyte, and a typical TV show being ~700MB, it should cost somewhere in the region of £0.03 to steam a one hour TV show. Storage costs would be relatively minimal, as that is distributed between all customers. So 5p per one hour steam is actually very reasonable.
Then I’ll torrent it instead…
Perhaps for a small additional fee via services such as Lovefilm or Netflix, would prevent them having to set up their own service to charge people.
I think the only thing that would bother me is clicking on something I wanted to watch and THEN seeing ‘This content must be paid for’ or similar. But otherwise I’m a little indifferent to it, since I’d pirate or YouTube by default because it was free at one point, I just missed it. And since the cost is all about the cost of streaming according to the BBC, it should be no problem if I get it from somewhere else that doesn’t charge for bandwidth
.
Also, couldn’t they fund streaming with ads (just in the proposed paid content)? And then you could pay to own it and take the ads away?
The back catalogue should be made available to all license payers , the subscription service should only be for overseas users ..but then , the BBC may produce some great programming , but if they wanted to pursue this type of service isnt it time they got with the bigger picture and remove the license fee altogether and switch to ad based revenue , introduce STB so the whole service can be accessed by TV …then they may have a product the people may acually pay for.