Global gathering
The BBC's director general has confirmed that Auntie's international iPlayer app will ‘definitely' launch this year and will cost less than $10 a month.
The Guardian reported that Mark Thompson said the catch-up app will cost less than £6.13 a month when it launches.
Speaking at the FT's Digital Media and Broadcasting conference, he reportedly said the international iPlayer iPad app will let subscribers access old BBC programmes and cost "a small number of dollars per month, definitely fewer than 10".
He reportedly said the international iPlayer app will let Auntie put its programmes directly in front of consumers without them being rebranded and reformatted but will also ‘optimise value across the lifestyle.'
Thompson also apparently urged broadcasters, the government and mobile phone companies to work together to put together a ‘road map' for mobile TV.
"I believe that there's a strong case for the UK's broadcasters, mobile phone operators, Ofcom and government to come together to develop a roadmap for the introduction of mobile TV in this country," he reportedly said.
Thompson apparently added:"This would be complementary to the availability of TV content on demand, whether streamed or cached on the device and would enable the public to access time-critical content - news, major sports events and so on - wherever they are."
He admitted that no meetings are penciled in to push the plan forward, but that he thinks the process should be kick started immediately.
Apparently, 162 million programmes, an average of 6 a household, were downloaded via iPlayer in the UK in January.
"The greatest month-on-month growth now is not on PCs or cable TVs but on iPads, iPhones, other smartphones and games consoles," he reportedly added.
Thompson apparently promised that the "BBC will never retreat from delivering news online," but ruled out the Beeb launching its own social network. However, he apparently hinted that it is in conversations with Facebook and that YouTube has been handy for sampling and marketing BBC shows.
