Talking Telly: Why the BBC Is Right To Keep iPlayer To Itself

A couple of weeks ago, there was rejoicing on all shores after it was announced that the BBC would make a international version of its iPlayer. Finally, “Doctor Who” and “Torchwood” on the same air date as the UK! It was like Christmas for DW fans. Even if we do have to pay, which is only fair – Brits get a license fee and we’ve happily paid $1.99 to iTunes to get it two weeks late.

But then the BBC said that they aren’t going to give ITV or Channel 4 access to the iPlayer so we can all pay for one product and get everything. Now the Brits and those same DW fans are upset. Because, presumably, the DW fans are also fans of “The Sunday Night Project”, which I’ll feature in an upcoming “Things that US TV should steal” column. Or a bunch of folks, like I, are huge fans of “The Cube” (I’d also be featuring that in the above column, but Fox has already ordered it without a pilot, which is kinda brave for an American network. Or maybe there are some folks who, like me, would pick “Saturday Night Takeaway” over DW. My sole reasoning for that is because David Tennant slated Ant and Dec in the commentary track for the DW series finale DVD set, and I hold grudges like babies.

But, in any case, ITV and Channel 4 will have to come up with their own international distribution plans. But unlike The Independent, who say that the BBC is violating their own trust by scuttling an all-channels player, I think the Beeb is within their rights to say no.

What would be a good example of a similar situation? Remember the hoopla when NBC Universal said “no” to iTunes and built Hulu? Every Mac owner and “House” fan in America, including me, had a cow. But NBCI was concerned because Apple was making, at the time, a big majority of the 99-cents per episode, and they took all the commercials out.

Fast-forward to now. Hulu is now available on both PC and Mac and has the option (most of the time) to either watch commercials during the show or watch one long-form commercial at the beginning of the show. Thus, I can watch some birth control commercial and then get my weekly dose of “Bones” commercial-free for five weeks after the original air date. After that, iTunes without commercials is my only legal option outside of buying DVD sets.

The BBC doesn’t have ads at all. Their programming is paid for by the British license fee. That’s why most BBC America shows are cut in horrible places for American airing. On the other hand, ITV and Channel 4 have to have ads, and in some cases the ads are more entertaining than the programming.

For American viewing, we’re going to have to pay some sort of fee or have to watch some extra commercial content to get the BBC. As I said before, this is only fair. But would the BBC include the same fee to see ITV and then take their commercials out? Or would we, in effect, pay ITV twice while the BBC gets one cheque?

Also, the BBC iPlayer is proprietary product. In fact, the BBC Trust got into trouble a year or so ago because they put so much money into BBC.co.uk that the network got into debt. Although there are good reasons why we didn’t get full seasons of “Doctor Who” and “Torchwood” (Tennant, Davies, Barrowman, et al) I stand by my statement that the shortened seasons partially came from funding shortfalls. After all, the BBC has to figure out how to pay to show the 2012 Olympics somehow.

What would be my solution to all this? I would happily pay for Freesat so I could get a satellite dish like some Brits do and get all my programming there. I hate DirecTV for how much they make Americans pay for NFL and Premiership games, but they could easily cut a deal with ITV and Channel 4 to add their programming to existing contracts. And you can already get movies (including British ones) from Netflix via XBox360 and PS3, so why not the same for ITV and Channel 4 content?

In the meantime, ITV has a really nice iPlayer of its own, and I could see them making their own deal for a shared player. Then I could have “Doctor Who” playing on the BBC iPlayer while “Saturday Night Takeaway” (if it comes back) is on the ITV one. Then I truly would have the best of both worlds.

Oh, and one more thing – we’re going to get a universal player for all British radio stations by Christmas. That’s excellent news for everyone who listens to stations other than BBC Radio (who didn’t block my access to Electric Proms last week and therefore escape my ire for now) but I’ve already got the other stations on WunderRadio on my iPod Touch. Still, a step in the right direction for all.