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We heard rumours that the BBC was planning a download-to-own service, codenamed Project Barcelona, that would let you buy new and classic shows from the BBC’s archive. Now the Director General, Mark Thompson, has formally announced the plan to set-up shop with each show demanding a “relatively modest fee” on-top of your licence fee.
It’s certainly a contentious point as to whether you should have to buy access to shows you’ve already paid for with your TV Licence, but Thompson sees it as the digital equivalent of buying TV shows on DVD. The BBC is planning to make its entire archive available, including a load of shows you couldn’t previously buy on any medium.
It’s by no means a shoe-in at this stage; it still has to get by the BBC Trust and get support from independent producers. Still, as I’ve said in the past, I would welcome another option for getting classic shows, and if the money goes straight to the BBC that’s better than Apple taking a cut. Let’s just hope the “relatively modest” fee doesn’t turn out to be more than £2. [BBC]
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I think this is a great idea and could be a major moneyspinner for the beeb, especially if it goes international. As you say, it means they get a bigger cut of the price, or could lower the prices, if they were not paying the Apple tax. Also if they were committed to putting everything in the BBC archives online there would be a huge collection of old ‘Tomorrows World’ episodes for us to laugh at.
Oh, that’d be amazing. I hadn’t thought of Tomorrow’s World. Man that thing got me hook-line-and-sinker with it’s April Fools “freezing microwave” gag.
This has the potential to be absolutely fantastic, if they really do make most of the old shows available. Think of all the classic dramas, sci-fi series and kids shows from the 70′s and 80′s that you could collect. Please make it happen.
Blake’s 7, All of classic & Modern Who, The original Survivors, Day of the Triffids, Tripods, The Old Men at the Zoo oh God Yes
Exactly!
Great for the BBC and us, we get the older shows we want to watch and as Darrell says, the BBC get most of the money without the Apple tax.
Looking forward to seeing how this one works out, but I don’t want it to replace the iPlayer, I still would like some content free to view.
I believe the plan was to keep iPlayer as it is now for the last 7 days of programming, but after the period the content gets archived to this new system where we can buy it.