A new service delivering television over the internet has become fodder in a new war between auntie beeb and satellite broadcaster BSkyB who are also in a brawl with virgin media over providing Sky one amongst other services on the virgin media network.
So lets just put this into context, the BBC iPlayer service Last month iPlayer handled 17.5m requests for downloads. So for arguments sake lets assume each download request is 600mb, (just averages) then this month alone they have transfered 10,500,000,000 megabytes or just over 10,013 terabytes.
The telegraph is reporting James Murdoch, BSkyB chairman, has accused the BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body, of an “abrogation of responsibility” in backing the launch of a service now making inroads into pay TV.
He claimed the BBC was using its market power to squeeze competition in the broadband TV market with its iPlayer service. He described the service as a big step and “pre-emptive intervention” that was “squashing a lot of competitors.
“I’m not saying it’s a bad product but I am saying it does crowd out competition and innovation.”
Theres no denying the BBC iplayer service have been an internet phenomon, within just a few short months. In retrospect it took Youtube over 12 month to get meaty share of the video market.
The beeb paid £120 million / $240 million in the last 5 years researching and development the technology.
– G&G
The iplayer is a great service and is one which i frequently use. It is great extension to the bbc and the interface it brilliant. The listen again feature that bbc radio uses is also excellent – well done bbc.
The BBC is a British tradition it’s part of the wood work , its like England without Tea. We as British subjects pay for great content from the license fee, I feel they do a great job, commerical business are just getting pissed beacuase the money for the shareholders meeting will have to go into research and development just to compete with Iplayer. Heres an interesting fact every UK person pays 36p from the license fee for BBC.co.uk.
The iplayer is a genius idea and it is a service that I was shocked was free! (please keep it free BBC) and I totally agree with andrew as we do get a lot for our licence fee.
If you read the full article though, he’s actually being more critical of the regulatory framework that allowed it to come into being than the iPlayer itself:
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Reglatory framework?
Its a website offering bbc content just like they do with DVD's. The real issue here is sky wants to 'charge' people for a similar on demand service and beacuase iplayer is free sky is getting pissed as it cant make as much money with a free alternative in its mist.
sky get pissy with any competitor look what happened when branson bought NTL, they spat there dummy out and cut sky one etc.. from Virgins schedule unless they paid a rediculous fee.