The BBC is to overhaul its iPlayer service, in the biggest change to it since it launched.
On the quiet, the BBC’s iPlayer service has become a place to find a good couple of dozen films available at any one time. At the time of this piece being penned, the range goes from the first two Tomb Raider features through to The Seventh Seal.
Now, the BBC has announced that the service is to undergo a huge expansion.
On the TV side, it’ll be implementing changes that now allow it to extend the time limit on new programming from 30 days on the service to a year. But the BBC now intends to use the service as “the gateway to all our programmes” (the words of Charlotte Moore, director of content).
The service will also get a new look and feel, as it seeks to keep pace with the likes of Netflix and Disney+. That it has no intention of challenging such services on a financial level, but instead it will look to human beings curating material, rather than algorithms.
Where that leaves the movies on the service remains to be seen, and there’s no strict timescale for the overhaul at the moment. But it sounds like we’re getting more of everything, as the BBC adapts to the service increasingly being used for live viewing as well as archive material. We’ll keep you posted.
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