BBC iPlayer coming to TV

Full service available for free on Virgin Media

30 April 2008 8:11 GMT / By Stuart Miles

The BBC iPlayer is coming to a television near you following a deal by the Beeb and Virgin Media.

As of today, all 3.5 million Virgin Media customers will be able to catch up on BBC programmes they've missed by pressing the red button on any BBC channel.

Access to the BBC iPlayer will be through Virgin Media's EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) menu is due this summer.

Malcolm Wall, CEO of Content at Virgin Media, said: "We’re delighted to be the first TV platform in the UK to offer our customers BBC iPlayer as part of our on-demand service. The enormous success of iPlayer online has demonstrated the desire TV viewers have for viewing quality programmes at a time that suits them, and now it’s available from the comfort of the living room".

BBC iPlayer has been hugely successful since its launch on Christmas Day last year. Reports from the Beeb say that the service that allows viewers to catch-up on over 350 hours of TV programmes from the past 7 days has had over 42 million downloads in the first 4 months of the year.

Pocket-lint got in touch with Sky to see when they expected the iPlayer to launch via their rival broadcast services and received the following response from a Sky spokesperson:

"We'd expect that the BBC will make available its publicly funded content to all platforms. In the meantime, Sky+ is the biggest on-demand service, now used by 12 million people in 3.4 million homes. Almost three-quarters of enabled customers have used Sky Anytime since launch, watching a total of 32 million programmes to date."