Thread: BBC iPlayer now available in Australia

The BBC's iPlayer (for iPad's) has now launched in Australia. Usually the service allows Brits to watch live TV or 'catch-up TV' - the term for watching shows which recently aired.

The new global iPlayer uses a commercial model and will only serve as a Video On Demand service. It will ultimately provide access to the bulk of the BBC's massive television archives, with over 1000 hours being available at launch and "hours" of additional footage being "regularly added".

Subscriptions will cost $9.49 per month or $89.99 per year. The first ten hours are free to allow 'try-before-you-buy'.

The new version is exclusive to iPad although new platforms will be catered for in due course: iPhone, web browsers, Android mobile devices, televisions and more.

Disappointingly, cold water was poured on the notion of potentially paying a global Television license fee to access live and catch up BBC TV - something British expats and international BBC fans have longed for, for years.

Jana Bennett, President of BBC Worldwide Networks and iPlayer told the ABC, "There isn't a plan to have a license fee per se, but there is potential to answer the pent up demand by having something like this."

This global variant of iPlayer is being used as a pilot in Australia while the BBC gauges usage and demand before releasing it in larger territories like the US.

The global iPlayer has previously been running in various Western European countries, where it launched in July. The Australian launch represents a step up in the pilot program as demand is likely to be higher due to native English speaking and a relatively high concentration of British ex-pats.

Video quality will be tailored to the iPad meaning that those who connect their iPad to HD TVs won't get HD quality. However, this could change as demand increases and internet infrastructure improves.

Content will be spread across eight genres: News Specials and Documentaries, Entertainment, Drama, Science and Nature; Family and Kids; Music and Culture Comedy and Lifestyle. There will also be special Collated Content Collections the first of which will be a Dr Who "Dalek" retrospective. Dr Who is an understandable choice as it is one of the BBC's most popular exports and demand for it has been largely responsible for driving the high adoption rate of iPlayer and iView in the UK and Australia.

Launch programs include the entire first series of Dr Who along with Little Britain, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Ab Fab, Silent Witness, The Hairy Bikers, Charlie and Lola and Deadly 60. The BBC's renowned period drams will also feature and include Pride and Prejudice, Cranford and the House of Elliot. Also included is Holby City, The Blackadder box set, Top Gear specials, Gavin and Stacey, Torchwood, Walking with Dinosaurs, Bottom, Life of Birds, Panorama and much more. Where programmes overlap with existing Australian network licensing deals, we were told, all existing contracts would be honoured. EastEnders, the seminal UK soap remains exclusive to Foxtel within Australia.

Don't know if I'll subscribe or not as most programs I'd want to watch, I can get on the ABC or on UKTV (on foxtel). However, I've been having a play around with it and it does seem to work well. No problems streaming programs at all (and that's despite the fact I'm in a rural location with hardly the fastest internet connection in the world) and there's also the option to download for offline viewing.

Just use a VPN to access all online UK TV, it's easy. I use http://www.uktv-vpn.com and it costs peanuts!

After much surfing found a great site for live UKTV through the laptop
TVCatchup is a service that lets you watch pretty much all of the channels that you would get on a normal Freeview box back home in the UK. The only way to connect to this on the internet from abroad is via a VPN (virtual private network). Most of these are now blocked with TVCatchup, 4OD etc, but AngloVPN still works fine. 5 quid a month, & takes 2 minutes normally to setup,

Yes but how long before AngloVPN gets blocked. TVCatchUp tends to block VPN's pretty fast. Would it not be better to use the on-demand sites like BBC iPlayer, ITV Players etc?

Ive been using the anglo VPN site for a few weeks seems fine aswell, didnt get blocked for that still working, I was using VPN also for my netflicks account when travelling.

Wonder if anyone has tried using a slingbox to watch UK programs. I'm thinking of getting one, but only to use on my own network in the house just to feed Austar (satellite) to the pc's or iPads in the house.