BBC confirms Project Barcelona

The BBC has confirmed it intends to offer a download service of archive content over and above the current seven-day catch-up service available via iPlayer.

Speaking at the Royal Television Society in London this week, BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said that after the seven day window, a large proportion of what the BBC makes and broadcast is never seen or heard of again: “We want to change that and have started to talk to our partners, including the independent sector and PACT, about a proposal which we will formally submit to the BBC Trust later this year which – for reasons which escape me – we call Project Barcelona.

“The idea behind Barcelona is simple. It is that, for as much of our content as possible, in addition to the existing BBC iPlayer window, another download-to-own window would open soon after transmission – so that if you wanted to purchase a digital copy of a programme to own and keep, you could pay what would generally be a relatively modest charge for doing so.”

Read the full Advanced Television article here.