Virgin Media today announced the introduction of the BBC iPlayer for its 3.5 million cable customers. It’s the first time the on demand service has been made available on a TV platform.
Virgin customers will be able to access the iPlayer by pressing the Red Button on any BBC channel. Despite the anticipation ahead of the launch, access through the electronic programme guide will not be available until the summer. The line-up is largely the same as the web-based version, although there are some regional variations and rights restrictions.
The list-based navigation has been written for the Liberate middleware with the assets played through Virgin’s Seachange media servers. The BBC, Red Bee, Siemens and Virgin itself all worked on the intergration.
A limited amount of BBC content has been available as part of Virgin Media’s existing catch-up TV service for some time. Freely available content also includes contributions from Channel 4 and Virgin-owned channels Living, Virgin 1 and Bravo.
The iPlayer has come in for criticism from other ISPs, notably Tiscali, because of the pressure that the download element puts on broadband network.
