Friday, January 18, 2008

Out of sight...

We reported back in November that the BBC News web site can detect overseas users - and the version of the site they see carries ads (the site is ad-free for UK users by virtue of it being funded by UK licence payers... see It's news to me...).

That is a great service for British expats and other overseas English speakers and the ads are definitely a small price to pay.

Now it seems that the BBC is giving its users access to TV programmes from the previous seven days, which can be viewed on their iPlayer site or downloaded from there. What a fantastic service! We rushed to see what was on offer and found that this site has a similar system for detecting overseas users; on this occasion, however, the service is currently still only available to UK users - a matter of rights agreements it seems. So, nothing available on the site at present for those overseas.

The good news? Apparently they are working on an international version which they will make available as soon as possible - great news for expat Brits wanting to keep in touch with their cultural roots! We will keep you posted...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great news! I've really come to enjoy the BBC site this past year. I have begun to reject most American news outlets and have been really pleased with BBC.

Keith Pow-Williams said...

Yes, Tracy, perhaps it helps that the BBC has always been independent, traditionally not funded by advertising. That said, I'm not sure that the ads on the overseas version will affect things - it is just a way of funding the service for non-UK folks.

It will be interesting to see what they do with the international version of their iPlayer...