BBC iPlayer campaign

Published on 15th August 2007 at 10:01 by Brian Butterworth on UK Free TV

A group of concerned licence fee payers protested to the BBC yesterday.

The campaigners, from  defectivebydesign.com are concerned that using the Microsoft-only Digital Rights Management system for the BBC iPlayer is an insult to the people who have chosen not to use Microsoft software.

They point out that the Television Licence Fee is a universal charge on anyone who owns one or more television signal reception devices. As these people could have no computer, a Microsoft Windows computer, an Apple Macintosh or a Unix-style computer, the BBC should support ALL computer systems, not just XP.

 Listen to an interview with the Defective By Design.



They suggest that Microsoft is leveraging the BBC's publicly funded television programmes to force an unwanted, flawed and impracticable restrictions on the whole of the UK's population, which they see as a corruption of the BBC's core policies that have provided mass public support for the corporation television service since April 1925.

The BBC's  Ashley Highfield responded by saying: "We believe in Universality, I would not let our content be restricted to one platform. Beyond IP, we are also exploring how we can get versions of BBC iPlayer on to Freeview (DTT), FreeSat, and have plans to launch on cable with Virgin Media. We look closely at all possible platforms for distribution. PDAs, media centres, city centre video screens, kiosks, and so on. Some platforms require particular technologies, and some may simply not be economically viable for us to reversion for or distribute to (we must always weigh up the cost per person reached)."

Photos by  Matt Cashmore.

Your comments are always welcome. Please use the form below to add your thoughts or questions to this page. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

Darren cain
Wednesday 15 August 2007 11:50AM

I say BBC needs adverts on their TV channels & radio stations to cover the costs. The should have ads just like ITV and other digital channels.

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Ian
Thursday 16 August 2007 1:06AM Coventry

I tend to agree, Never used to but the more they f### things up the more I wish ther charte would be removed.

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Briantist
Thursday 16 August 2007 8:13AM

Darren/Ian: No! The best thing about the BBC is no bloody adverts for a third of the time.

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Darren Cain
Thursday 16 August 2007 4:31PM

ye it has good / bad points but money wise for viewers it's not... i would rather see edverts every 15 / 30 minuits then pay for a licence what is like £100 and the rest LOL...

Again i preferr ads.

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Briantist
Thursday 16 August 2007 4:40PM

Darren Cain: Fine, but it's a bit selfish to force them on everyone else! You do realise that you pay about four or five times more to have revenue for television collected though the price added to products than the efficient fiver-a-year it costs to collect the licence fee? If you want to have products pushed at you and pay people to do it, fine, but you're going to pay a fortune for the privilege! Sky charge £522 for their full package which comprises of payments to poncy sports "stars", poor quality US films and £252 for a package of channels which are mainly repeats or foreign imports. The BBC's licence fee funds eight TV channels, almost all of which is new British productions and also the oodles of radio stations playing British music and UK-produced factual programmes. And you get 60 minutes an hour of programmes, not 40.

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Ian
Thursday 16 August 2007 11:31PM Coventry

You also get loads of repeats, and even if you cant recive BBC you have to pay for it. not very fair.

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Briantist
Friday 17 August 2007 12:01AM

Ian: Repeats? Did you watch the TV 20 years ago? You didn't get repeats you got Pages From Ceefax! There is so much more commissioned material on the BBC than on any other broadcaster in the UK and if you think there are repeats you should try a bit of US or Spanish TV!
There are very few people who cannot actually receive the digital BBC services as they are carried on satellite, cable (analogue and digital) and online. The costs of administering a small decrease for people who CANNOT receive any BBC services (over analogue) would cost considerably more to implement and police than is spent on the services in the first place. There was considerable House of Commons debate about this when it happened, also.
I really can't understand why you think you would be better served by a commercial organization that simply wishes to push stuff onto people and spends a little as possible on padded tosh would be better than an organization that has a somewhat proven record in delivering television and radio which is of a considerably higher quality and better value for money than anywhere else...

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Darren cain
Saturday 18 August 2007 1:32PM

Ye i have seen repeats on BBC especially 'BBC 3'... I have never watched BBC 4 and i rearly watch BBC 2 only the wikest link. LOL

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Briantist
Saturday 18 August 2007 1:53PM

Darren cain: You're missing out, there are some good programmes on both channels, there's a Stephen Fry retrospective this weekend on BBC FOUR (with Young Ones, Blackadder Goes Forth etc) and there has been "Atom" on this week. BBC THREE has a tiny budget so has a larger repeat schedule because of this, "Last Man Standing" was excellent recently.

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Darren cain
Saturday 18 August 2007 10:11PM

that does sound good... i do say BBC 3 is my most watched BBC channel in the evening... and as well FTN, Sky 3, The hits

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Briantist
Sunday 19 August 2007 11:21AM

Darren cain: I just wish BBC THREE could get some of it's "live" content back, it a shame that Jonathan Price died, Liquid News would have been massive now!

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Tux Warrior
Wednesday 22 August 2007 5:26PM

Surely this is about whether the BBC should tacitly support Microsoft? I think the answer is NO, whatever you think about repeats and BBC 3 and Four!

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Briantist
Wednesday 22 August 2007 7:58PM

Tux Warrior: There are quite a few people who agree with that point!

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