Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 65 posts

Re: BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

#11

Post by Conjoiner »

sofaofthedamned wrote: post #8
morrbo wrote: post #5

Personally I kind of agree. Other than storage and traffic considerations I cannot see why the entire BBC archive is not available online. It seems stupid to me that we have literally 50+ years of content, documentaries, panel shows, etc. Which could all easily be put online as they are the BBC's content and have been paid for by the British people already. I understand that this might be overkill but I definitely fi…

But the BBC don't actually own the rights to most of their old output. They were made in an era too where streaming rights weren't a thing.assume it's different with newer stuff but...

If it is in the publics best interest for the BBC to own the rights then that can be arranged

Re: BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

#12

Post by DanBC »

Conjoiner wrote: post #11
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the BBC don't actually own the rights to most of their old output. They were made in an era too where streaming rights weren't a thing.assume it's different with newer stuff but...

If it is in the publics best interest for the BBC to own the rights then that can be arranged

Current government would be strongly against that. They want to BBC to use private production companies who'll make the content that BBC then transmits.

This is seen across a wide range of government departments: moving away from big central (often previously state) providers to smaller local private providers.

Re: BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

#13

Post by hardlianotion »

bovine3dom wrote: post #10
eyebrowser95 wrote: post #6

BBC is a joke of a governmental corporation that makes revenues from tv licenses even if you dont own a tv. Essentially they can still make money if you have iPlayer on your computer which requires a license. I live in the UK and every year they send letter to warn all residents even if they dont own a TV (which I dont) they might still need to pay due to iPlayer being on your computer. Blaming Netflix is not enough.…

You need a licence if you use iPlayer; having iPlayer installed on your devices does not mean you require a licence.

You need it if you use it to watch tv. Not for radio.

Re: BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

#14

Post by sleavey »

eyebrowser95 wrote: post #6

BBC is a joke of a governmental corporation that makes revenues from tv licenses even if you dont own a tv. Essentially they can still make money if you have iPlayer on your computer which requires a license. I live in the UK and every year they send letter to warn all residents even if they dont own a TV (which I dont) they might still need to pay due to iPlayer being on your computer. Blaming Netflix is not enough.…

> makes revenues from tv licenses even if you dont own a tv

This is just plain wrong. You can own a TV (e.g. for a console) but not pay for a TV licence if you say you don't watch broadcasts. You can even have the software installed on your computer and not pay, as long as you don't actually watch iPlayer with it.

This is different from e.g. Germany where every household must pay for a licence regardless of whether you watch it or not.

Re: BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

#15

Post by benj111 »

morrbo wrote: post #5

Personally I kind of agree. Other than storage and traffic considerations I cannot see why the entire BBC archive is not available online. It seems stupid to me that we have literally 50+ years of content, documentaries, panel shows, etc. Which could all easily be put online as they are the BBC's content and have been paid for by the British people already. I understand that this might be overkill but I definitely fi…

Absolutely.

To go a little bit more high brow.

Imagine being able to go through all the Horizon documentaries. Or the Open University Stuff.

What about being able to watch political discussions on joining the Common Market.

Quite why most of this stuff isn't viewed as a public library that we have the right to access, I don't know.

Re: BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

#16

Post by mongol »

kgraves wrote: post #3

Wait what? The BBC's iPlayer was in this "streaming fight"? I thought it is only available in the UK and not anywhere else unlike the other players such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. iPlayer doesn't seem nowhere near winning this "fight" against these players IMHO.

The article seems very UK-centric. As citizen of another coutnry living outside UK I would love to try to subscribe to BBC IPlayer. I think I would prefer it over Netflix, if the price was the same / similar.

Re: BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

#17

Post by jon-wood »

DanBC wrote: post #12
Conjoiner wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is in the publics best interest for the BBC to own the rights then that can be arranged

Current government would be strongly against that. They want to BBC to use private production companies who'll make the content that BBC then transmits. This is seen across a wide range of government departments: moving away from big central (often previously state) providers to smaller local private providers.

Well, to private providers anyway. The preference for most things seems to be huge multinationals rather than small local companies.

Re: BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

#19

Post by Veen »

eyebrowser95 wrote: post #6

BBC is a joke of a governmental corporation that makes revenues from tv licenses even if you dont own a tv. Essentially they can still make money if you have iPlayer on your computer which requires a license. I live in the UK and every year they send letter to warn all residents even if they dont own a TV (which I dont) they might still need to pay due to iPlayer being on your computer. Blaming Netflix is not enough.…

If you don't watch broadcast TV and don't use iPlayer for anything but radio, then you can ignore those letters. Whether you own a TV or not is irrelevant. I own a TV but I only use it for Netflix etc. A chap from the TV licensing people came to my house and I told him we don't need a license for those reasons, and now we don't get the letters any more.

Re: BBC admits iPlayer has lost streaming fight with Netflix

#20

Post by Veen »

kgraves wrote: post #3

Wait what? The BBC's iPlayer was in this "streaming fight"? I thought it is only available in the UK and not anywhere else unlike the other players such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. iPlayer doesn't seem nowhere near winning this "fight" against these players IMHO.

It's an article about a UK company in a UK newspaper. Look at it in that context.
Post reply on HN