October 12, 2009
Fremantle Favours Micro-charging for iPlayer Viewing
Media experts seem to be pushing for charging consumers for each use of iPlayer in the wake of decreasing advertising revenues from commercial TV. The idea was publicised at a BBC event where invitee
Her view has the wholehearted backing of parent company Fremantle Media, whose CEO Tony Cohen also agreed that charging users is fair and feasible. He revealed that feasibility studies are already underway in his company. He quoted research findings in his statement that show viewers may be happy to pay up to £2 for top-of-the-line shows.
The BBC however seems to be unimpressed by the plan. A spokesperson for the broadcasting company shot down the idea, stating clearly that the BBC has no intention of micro charging at this point. He further clarified that to do this would be to charge the consumer twice for the same service, because such costs are incorporated into the licence fee paid initially by all iPlayer users in the
However, according to Steve Hewlett, ex-director of Carlton Television, this refusal by the BBC seems unjustified. He wonders why the BBC finds this charge unfair, when they refuse to distribute DVDs of their in-house programmes in order to restrict repeated viewing. He clarifies that the licence fee structure has always been determined keeping in view charges for one initial transmission. He suggests the BBC can use an alternative system on the lines of the ones used by iTunes, which makes payment easy and fast while keeping processes economical. The popularity of this type of service has also grown since the advent of mobile broadband services and free laptops that are giving people ease of access to the internet at any time of the day from anywhere they want.
