BBC iPlayer App comes to Canada, all access for $8.99

Text and photos by Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Fancy some BBC on the telly but refuse to pay cable tv's steep fees? Canadian iPad owners can now enjoy BBC's content for the price of two pints of Guiness or $8.99 a month ($84.99 a year)

Available today on the iOS App Store for iPad users (no iPhone or iPod Touch app yet) the BBC iPlayer App offers 1500 hours of content, that can be streamed directly to the iPad or downloaded for future consumption.

The app is free and will offer users 30 curated shows a month but subscribed users get access to the BBC's line up of shows including all 15 seasons of Top Gear, Sherlock, Click, Luther and various others including some classic shows that are only available on DVD.

During the launch event for the BBC iPlayer, we heard from Dan Heaf, the EVP of Digital, BBC Worldwide who said, "earlier this year we launched in 15 countries. We've been amazed with the results. Today is the next phase. This is an extremely important market for us because the BBC is well loved. We want to take it beyond a pilot program."

Dan Heaf of BBC Worldwide: "Canada is an extremely important market for us."The Global iPlayer allows Canadians to watch BBC shows on the iPad. The shows, which do not include BBC News, range from classic and contemporary comedy, drama, natural history, music, lifestyle and science.

The app allows for WiFi or 3G streaming  and download. The download and watch later functionality of the BBC's iPlayer is what differentiates  it from it competing streaming providers like Netflix and Hulu, which can only stream shows but do not allow downloading (possibly because it doesn't own those rights).

The beauty of the BBC iPlayer is that while it is an iPad-exclusive service, users with the AppleTV can user Apple's AirPlay wireless service to stream the content on to any connected HDTV.

Heaf said that unlike Netflix which offers, "everything for everyone," the BBC will rely on its strength of curating high quality programming that is tailored to Canadians.

"We have have shied away from an algorithmic model (Netflix or Amazon). Our services are hand stitched and we find what people might like, what makes sense to people. We curate our content and this is something we are good at," Heaf noted.

In terms of quality, the BBC iPlayer App will stream video in standard definition and has no user-end settings for upgrading or downgrading video quality in order to save on bandwidth costs. A big problem faced by early users of the Netflix service in Canada is that many were hitting their bandwidth cap or allotments due to the data required. Netflix remedied this by downscaling video quality in general and allowing consumers to choose what setting they wanted.

When asked if perhaps the cost of the service was a bit too high, considering some of the iPlayer's content (like Top Gear and some of the popular classic comedies) are already available on Netflix, Heaf had this to say.

"This is a service that has to capture the hearts of existing BBC users," said Derren Lawford, Head of Programming and Scheduling for Global iPlayer.

"This is a service that has to capture the hearts of existing BBC users," said Derren Lawford, Head of Programming and Scheduling for Global iPlayer.

 Throughout December, there will be 30 free shows and every day a new festive title will appear.

Non subscribers get to watch 30 programs per month for free in order to test the service. 

BBC iPlayer is available in 15 countries.  BBC hopes to curate country pages for each of their target countries.

BBC iPlayer in Canada is different from the UK version which acts as a supplement to video subscriptions.

The UK version of the app is regardes as 'catch up,' service similar to the apps we've seen from Global, CBC and CityTV in Canada, the difference is that these apps and the content that they show are completely free.

Comments

[ferg]

I am using http://www.laptoptelly.com in Toronto to watch BBC iPlayer the UK version, seems to stream fast enough from here.