An article in the Guardian today details how the BBC is planning to introduce two new technologies; an Interactive Media Player (iMP) for downloading or streaming recently aired television or radio programming and the Creative Archive for sharing ‘classic’ programmes that have been removed from current BBC schedules.

The interesting aspect of thise report is not that the BBC plans to take part in digital distribution of content, but that they are considering tailoring access according to location worldwide. With almost half of BBC Online’s users coming from overseas, the corporation is looking for ways to reimburse UK based license payers for their current subsidy of outside users. By introducing advertising on web sites such as BBC News of BBC.co.uk and charging for programming the corporate could even make a slim profit.

The director of new media and technology, Ashley Highfield, confirmed that plans to bring in extra money by selling downloads of popular programmes such as Doctor Who, Little Britain and the Blue Planet over the internet were “coming up the agenda. It’s something we’ve been mandated to do by our charter. It’s now become possible because we have internet rights that we could charge for, and we now have the technology,” he said.

New technology makes it possible for the BBC, which operates the UK’s most popular website, to identify exactly where its internet users are coming from. During the Athens Olympics last year, when the BBC provided hundreds of hours of live coverage to broadband internet users, it successfully tested software allowing it to restrict transmission to UK licence fee payers.

Mr Highfield said that in the future the “flip side” was that the BBC could also acquire the international internet rights to big events and charge overseas users to watch them. Any such move would have to be handled through the corporation’s BBC Worldwide commercial subsidiary.

Guardian: BBC may sell programmes abroad over internet

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