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16,000 sign BBC iPlayer petition

Campaign to open the iPlayer up to platforms other than Windows goes to Downing Street for government response.

By Miya Knights, 21 Aug 2007 at 17:35

Over 16,000 people have signed a petition being delivered to 10 Downing Street today in protest at the single-platform development of the BBC's iPlayer video on-demand service.

The broadcaster's new video on-demand service was launched as a beta to licence fee payers at the end of last month. But the launch attracted criticism from users and industry watchers as a result of the fact the beta is only available to Microsoft Windows users, and relies on Microsoft's Windows Media Player and digital rights management technology.

Given its public sector remit, the petition aims to persuade the government to force the BBC into making the beta available for other media players that can run on alternative operating systems.

"The BBC should not be allowed to show commercial bias in this way, or to exclude certain groups of the population from using its services," the petition states.

Having closed yesterday and garnered far more than the minimum 200 signatures necessary for a government response, the petition will now go to Downing Street officials to be actioned.

Open source advocate group, The Open Source Consortium (OSC) has also recently threatened the BBC with a European antitrust challenge to the digital rights management (DRM) technologies used in its on-demand iPlayer service.

The OSC wrote industry watchdog Ofcom, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the BBC Trust in June, asking for a re-examination of the effects of the BBC's iPlayer service being tied into Windows Media Player for at least two years and, by extension, new versions of Windows.

The BBC's response to date has been to deny commercial bias, with the promise of a wider, platform-agnostic roll out of the service sometime in the future. But it has refused to be drawn on this schedule, despite agreeing to meet with the OSC to discuss its concerns.

Ashley Highfield, director of Future Media & Technology at the BBC stated: "We are committed to making it as easy as possible to use BBC iPlayer. Developing a version for Apple Macs and Microsoft Vista is absolutely on our critical path."

He also said the BBC was committed to making it available on TV as well, which is it is working with Virgin Media towards a cable launch later this year. "We are hopeful that other TV platforms will follow soon after," he added.