Number 10 responds to iPlayer petition…

…And it’s pretty lacklustre. Over 16,000 people signed the petition, demanding that the BBC stop excluding license fee payers who don’t have computers running Microsoft software from its new on demand TV service. But Number Ten are apparently satisfied with the BBC Trust’s commitment that the iPlayer would be cross-platform “as soon as possible”, and the six-month review process the Trust has put in place:

“…the Trust conducted a Public Value Test on the BBC Executive’s proposals to launch new on-demand services, including BBC iPlayer. This included a public consultation and a market impact assessment by Ofcom. In the case of the iPlayer, following the consultation, the Trust noted the strong public demand for the service to be available on a variety of operating systems. The BBC Trust made it a condition of approval for the BBC’s on-demand services that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the BBC meets this demand as soon as possible.”

As the Open Source Consortium have argued, what the Trust’s provisions fail to acknowledge is the significant competitive advantage this lag time gives the purveyors of the only operating system currently supported by the iPlayer – Microsoft.

The Open Rights Group believes that the BBC should release content that has been bankrolled by license-fee payers in standard formats that are accessible to all.

Read the full petition response here. Read our submission to the BBC Trust’s consultation on on-demand services here.