The release is a one year worldwide pilot of the service and in addition to a subscription at €6.99 a month or €49.99 a year, programmes will be preceded by advertisements, something the BBC is not allowed to do in the UK.

At the time of launch there will be 1,500 hours of content available and this will include content from some other British broadcasters including ITV and Channel 4.  The BBC has been very keen to work with other broadcasters in the UK to provide integrated IPTV services.

BBC.com’s managing director, Luke Bradley-Jones is keen to stress “[it] is not a catch-up service: this is a video-on-demand service. We will have content from the last month, but also the best from the catalogue stretching back 50 to 60 years.”

The delay in bringing the app to the USA has apparently been caused by legal issues with the BBC saying they needed to “jump through a few more of those commercial and legal hoops” before releasing it there.  As for a price in the US, a monthly figure of $7.99 has been mentioned which is excellent value compared to the European editions.  The US price is set at a level to make the service competitive with NetFlix and Hulu.

At launch the app will feature some facilities that aren’t available to UK television licence-fee payers.  These include the streaming of shows via 3G.  As with their UK counterparts however, people will also be able to download programs to watch later.

Now rumour has it that the rollout will begin with a subscription-service for the iPad according to Engadget and Broadcast Magazine. 

This subscription model will allow the BBC to accommodate licence-fee payers in the UK who each pay around £130 a year for this public-service broadcaster.

The subscription service will later, it is also rumoured, be followed by an advertising-supported free version (the BBC does not screen advertisements before, during or after any of its programmes, yes, you did read that right!)

This is excellent news for worldwide fans of shows like Top Gear, Doctor Who, EastEnders and erm… Cash in the Attic (maybe not that last one).

There’s no word yet on when the service will be available but the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thomson, has previously said it would almost certainly be sometime in 2011.

Users who want to download radio and TV programmes from BBC iPlayer can use the portable software program iDownload to do so. The download manager has been programmed in Java and is accessed in a web browser. The interface provides access to a content search that includes all supported BBC radio and TV programmes.

Available radio and TV shows are shown and can be marked for download by either double-clicking them or using the download button. All selected TV and radio shows are moved to the Downloads section of the web interface. Users from the United Kingdom can start to download the TV and radio shows right away while users from other countries need to find an anonymous web proxy (or VPN from the UK) to do so.

Download BBC iPlayer TV and Radio programmes can be launched directly from within the web interface. The TV programmes are downloaded as Apple Quicktime files (.mov) and the radio shows as mp3. The iDownload software to download BBC iPlayer programmes is available from the developer’s website.

ITV Player uses Microsoft’s Silverlight format to stream its media, which allows it to be played on Windows and Macs. Users report problems with it working under the Linux build of Silverlight. The website itself looks quite slick but is nowhere as near as nice to use as BBC’s iPlayer.

The service allows users to watch shows like Coronation Street but I cannot see any way to download these episodes to watch portably as you can with iPlayer.

Whilst it’s nice to see ITV using a non-Windows only brand (unlike Channel 4), it would have been good had they used a more universal format like Flash or OGG.

There are a few other issues with it. Many shows can’t be watch live due to licensing issues, the video is too small and the only options are small or fullscreen – unlike iPlayer. ITV Player also fails to offer HD shows.

I think ITV Player will either be drastically improved or scrapped! I’m surprised ITV are in-touch enough with the public to stay clear of DRM but I’m disappointed they used Silverlight and made it incompatible with Linux. The interface needs work too.

I expect the site won’t work outside the UK but it’s still a convenient service British readers may have overlooked. If it does work outside, please comment and let us know!