14 DAY TRIAL // A recent Reuters report reveals that British BBC viewers will be able to download a selection of programs straight from Apple's digital store iTunes, as the two companies have struck a deal. The agreement was announced on Tuesday by the public broadcaster's commercial arm, according to Yahoo News.
Programs like Life On Mars, Little Britain and Spooks, are to become available in Britain for purchase and download from the iTunes Store, BBC Worldwide said, when talking of included programs. Priced at 1.89 pounds ($3.69) per episode, programs will then be viewable for PC, Mac, video iPod, iPhone or Apple TV owners, in what is the first deal of its kind for Apple and a UK broadcaster.
The BBC aims to secure the broadest possible distribution for its content, while Apple and its devices are closest thing to achieving that. Also, broadcasting corporation already has its own free on-demand service called iPlayer. iPlayer allows viewers to watch older programs, as long as at least one week will have passed since its initial airing.
More BBC news have revealed that the Mac version of BBC iPlayer will become available this year. The new application will enable Mac users not only to stream, but also to download TV content from the Internet, and watch it at their leisure. BBC found that the iPlayer was having a significant effect on the web TV market in the UK.
The BBC's General Director, Mark Thompson, wrote a while ago in a blog entry that there was a lot of criticism for a lack of Mac and Linux compatibility, all this while a lot of positive feedback has also been received, ever since iPlayer was officially launched on Christmas, 2007.
Naturally, some issues concerned protecting content from being copied and redistributed illegally. The BBC has overcome those issues and can now confirm the upcoming availability of a Mac-compatible download application during the course of this year.
BBC programs will be made available on the iPlayer first, then on iTunes.
