Guardian Unlimited: The BBC’s much-delayed on-demand broadband TV catch-up service, iPlayer, is to launch on July 27.
The service will give broadband users free access to TV and radio programmes that the BBC has broadcast over the previous seven days.
After conducting a public value test, the BBC Trust gave final approval to the service at the end of April. The iPlayer was expected to launch by November, but this has now been brought forward by several months.
The BBC said today it was in discussions with potential distribution partners including MSN, Telegraph.co.uk, AOL, Tiscali, Yahoo, Myspace, Bebo and Blinkx. The iPlayer service will not be available on Apple computers at launch.
BBC licence fee payers will be able to use the iPlayer to catch up on any television or radio programme aired in the previous seven days.
They will also be able to download programmes and save them on their computers for up to 30 days. Once opened, programmes will be viewable for up to seven days.
The iPlayer project has been in gestation for more than three years, during which time rival broadcasters including Channel 4, ITV, BSkyB, Virgin Media and Channel Five have launched their own on-demand services.
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