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BBC: Almost 30,000 people across the UK still tune into their favourite programmes on black and white TV sets.

The figures were released by TV Licensing to mark the 40th anniversary of the first colour transmissions on BBC1 and ITV.

The 28,000 black and white licence holders included 1,950 in Scotland. The figures showed the black and white sets have not yet been consigned to history despite the rise of flat-screens and the iPlayer.

While the figures show there is still life in the oldest TV equipment, BBC statistics show that emerging technologies are changing the way many of us watch TV. In September, the BBC iPlayer attracted more than one million unique users a day, who watched a total of 60.8 million TV programmes on the internet using computers, smart phones and games consoles, as well as on televisions equipped with the Virgin Media set-top boxes.

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TrustedReviews: The BBC’s iPlayer continues to get better and better. Don’t take my word for it though; take the words of all the PC and iPhone users currently indulging in the service. Need more convincing still? How about the announcement that the Nintendo Wii is to be the next platform to see an iPlayer client tailored for it? In a word, fantastic!

The player is currently only available in a test version, with further revisions expected later in the year before a full version is released. Supposedly the first download will be up for grabs any time now, with a message being sent to all Wii owners in the UK to inform them as such.

Importantly only UK-resident license-fee payers are allowed to use the service, so you’ll be entering your post code (or if you’re dishonest that of someone who does pay) to use the service. Anyone having imported a console from another country will probably have to miss out on this too – that’s the price of getting a Wii in the face of UK stock shortages.

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BBC News: The BBC has launched a version of its iPlayer video on demand service for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch.It is the first time the service has been available on portable devices.

The iPhone and iPod touch are able to stream shows from the iPlayer website over wi-fi networks. The iPhone cannot stream BBC video over the cell network. A BBC developer said that the corporation was currently working on other versions of the iPlayer for “many more” devices.

Anthony Rose, writing on the BBC internet blog, said: “We started with iPhone because it is the device most optimised for high quality video currently available.

“It displays the BBCiPlayer site and BBC programmes nicely.”

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NMA: The BBC iPlayer has streamed or downloaded more than 17m programmes in the seven weeks since its Christmas Day launch.

Figures from the BBC revealed that streams and downloads of its on-demand TV service had peaked at 500,000 a day and averaged 1.3m unique users a week….

… During January more than 2.2m people watched a programme on iPlayer, while 11m TV programmes were streamed or downloaded over the month.

The iPlayer has also helped to boost traffic to bbc.co.uk by 29% year on year.

The most popular programmes were ‘Torchwood’, ‘Ashes to Ashes’ and ‘Doctor Who’, along with the Six Nations England and Wales match.

The iPlayer is also having a positive effect for BBC audio programmes, which recorded 15.9m radio downloads during January, an increase on 13.4m in December.

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4rfv: The BBC has launched a streaming service on its video-on-demand platform, BBC iPlayer, complementing the download service which launched in beta on 27 July 2007.

BBC iPlayer will be the first public service broadcaster online on-demand service in the UK to provide streaming for Macs and Linux, as well as Windows. Audiences can watch up to 250 different programmes a week for up to seven days after broadcast on the BBC’s television channels.

Anthony Rose, Head of Digital Media Technology at the BBC, said: “We have worked hard to make BBC iPlayer a compelling user proposition. Streaming is the first in a number of new services that we will be rolling out in the coming months and we will be listening to feedback from our audiences to understand how they find the service and what new additions they would be interested in.

“We will be constantly updating BBC iPlayer to ensure that we continuously improve the way we deliver BBC programmes. One of the many updates we hope to implement in 2008 is a download solution for users of other operating systems including Macs which may be possible with the next suite of Adobe Air products.”

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BBC News: The BBC’s flagship online TV service is being launched, offering viewers the chance to download their favourite programmes from the last seven days.
For director general Mark Thompson, the launch of iPlayer is as big a milestone as the arrival of colour TV.

But others have questioned how technically reliable it will be and whether it is late to a crowded market.

At launch, a fixed number of people will be able to sign up, with the numbers increasing throughout the year.

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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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TechDigest: Apple iTunes may begin selling TV shows to Europe from the spring, according to Luxembourg’s economic minister Jeannot Krecke, who said that Apple had been in talks with Luxembourg authorities for several months.

“Apple is going to extend its electronic retail activities in Luxembourg by launching this coming spring its iTunes video platform for the sale of videos in Europe,” Krecke told Agence France Presse.

And in other iTV news, the BBC is looking to make a little history today possibly becoming the first traditional TV station to offer all of their programming on demand and over the Internet.

The BBC’s new iPlayer service will lets viewers watch all of the BBC’s programmes from the previous 7 days, and even lets them store shows on their PC for up to 30 days. A final decision approving the service will be made May 2nd.

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