The BBC iPlayer

The BBC is changing the way that broadcasting works here in Britain, forever. The iPlayer has the hype and capability to entirely alter television to be a self-selected experience, completely shattering the need for a television schedule.

So far released as a test version, this player allows the user to select a choice of transmitted programmes whenever they want to view them. The BBC kept this a ‘soft’ release allowing them keep tabs on the technology, building up to a full-scale release without any pressure from mountainous amounts of users.

This is not a new idea though. Channel 4 have been doing this since late last year (4oD), which has been a remarkable success gaining independent programme makers extra revenue. ITV is also slowly lifting the curtain on its new £20million website. However the BBC is the biggest name in the UK’s television media and soon the UK’s viewers will be able to freely download all BBC owned material with a 7 day lifespan.

The computer is fast growing its roots into the home entertainment realms and with increasing technology being built to support it, all television production companies will have to adapt to survive.