Where next for the BBC iPlayer?

"Many of you may have seen Micro Men on BBC 4 (or on the BBC iPlayer) last week. It was an interesting reminder of the UK home computer boom of the early 1980s. Much has changed since then but I think there are some parallels to be drawn between the emerging UK microcomputing market then and the connected devices market of today.

In the 80s rival manufacturers were unconcerned with developing systems that could be used or operated reciprocally. Each hoped to emerge from a fragmented but rapidly growing market as the winner. It happened in computing, it's still happening in mobile, and it could well happen in connected TVs. This post is about how we deliver our video-on-demand service to a variety of platforms so that audiences can enjoy BBC content on them.

When we launched the BBC iPlayer in 2007, it was initially in Windows, but we wanted to make the service available on as many platforms and devices as was technically possible and economically sensible. It remains important that the platform strategy complements our content syndication policy. This means that, as well as taking the BBC iPlayer itself onto multiple platforms, we will continue to license BBC content to a range of third parties. This policy has worked well for the industry and for audiences..."

from BBC Internet Blog