5 years on: How the BBC iPlayer sparked a TV revolution

BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer launched five years ago today

Something amazing happened on Christmas Day 2007, and we don't mean Santa getting stuck in the chimney or Gran overdoing the sherry: the BBC launched iPlayer, its on-demand internet video service.

As LoveFilm's Simon Morris recalls, iPlayer changed the game: "They normalised the idea of catch-up TV," he said. "The service went a long way to explaining to middle England that streaming content was normal."

iPlayer was a hit from the very start, shifting 3.5 million programme streams and downloads in its first three weeks, and by April 2008 it accounted for one fifth of all UK internet traffic. By early 2012, 40% of online adults were using it.

Remember the launch ad?

iPlayer thrived for several reasons. One, it did something useful. Two, it did it very well. Three, it's constantly being improved - for example, it got a dramatic, social media-inspired makeover in 2010 and added links to other broadcasters' programmes in 2011. And four, it's constantly finding new devices to play programmes on.

iPlayer

By early 2008, iPlayer was our go-to service for both TV and radio shows

The Wii, PS3 and iPhone got iPlayer in 2008, but Microsoft's boneheaded "no free stuff for free users" policy meant the Xbox didn't get iPlayer until 2012 - although when it finally arrived, the BBC made sure it worked with Kinect.

Iplayer

Late 2008, with the new

iPlayer came to Android in 2011, and in October of this year it completed the roll-out to the UK's major broadcasting systems when it arrived on Sky+ and YouView.

iPlayer didn't make it to the Xbox 360 until 2012

iPlayer didn't make it to the Xbox 360 until 2012. Boo! It supports Kinect! Yay!

There were iPlayers for BlackBerries and for Sonys, for smart TVs and smartphones... if it had a screen, chances are you could watch iPlayer on it - although the April 1, 2009 story announcing a special iPlayer-enabled toaster with an integrated OLED display was, of course, a hoax.

iToaster

The iPlayer isn't available on toasters, despite BBC April Fools

As iPlayer embraced new devices, so did we: today, just 50% of iPlayer viewing is happening on computers, down from 65% the year before and 100% on day one. Some of those views are on TVs, of course, but around one-quarter of them are on tablet and phones.

iPlayer is available on pretty much everything. This is the PS3/Smart TV version from 2011

iPlayer is available on pretty much everything. This is the PS3/Smart TV version from 2011

It hasn't all been plain sailing. Over the years the iPlayer has been plagued by everything from ISP throttling and anti-DRM protests to moaning commercial rivals, although as our Dan Grabham pointed out at the time, rivals really needed to make services that weren't rubbish instead of whingeing. Rupert Murdoch was particularly unhappy, claiming back in 2008 that iPlayer had "squashed other competition".

iPlayer

HD streaming came to the iPlayer in 2009, much to the annoyance of some ISPs

For a while, there was even talk of opening up iPlayer to other broadcasters, although the BBC Trust decided that that was a really terrible idea. Rivals did eventually raise their game, although plans for the BBC and commercial broadcasters to team up as one big happy family under the Project Kangaroo banner were crushed by the Competition Commission. It has, however, gone global:

iPlayer's interface is particularly good on tablets, as you can see from this 2012 screenshot

iPlayer's interface is particularly good on tablets, as you can see from this 2012 screenshot

Rivals might not have liked it, but we all did: in 2010's TechRadar awards the iPlayer team walked away with two gongs - the most essential online innovation award, and the most innovative home entertainment platform award. Perhaps that was because it enabled everyone to watch World Cup matches when they were at work.

One of the reasons iPlayer is so well liked is because it keeps improving. In January, BBC policy and strategy director John Tate said that the BBC shouldn't rest on its iPlayer laurels, and it didn't: we got the ability to pause and resume live TV in June and mobile downloads in September.

iPlayer was early to the iPhone, and gained an iPhone 5-friendly version this year

iPlayer was early to the iPhone, and gained an iPhone 5-friendly version this year

So what's next? According to iPlayer general manager Matthew Littleford, the aim is to avoid what happened to Kodak: instead of embracing digital photography, Kodak stuck with film and let competitors kill its business.

"We can set the iPlayer up for the future or resign it to obsolescence," Littleford said. "We are having the 'Kodak moment' right now; we don't want to come up with catch-up TV and then see everyone else overtake us." With iPlayer, it seems, we ain't seen nothing yet.

BBC iPlayer 2012

This early-2012 image shows how the BBC has kept iPlayer simple. That's part of its success
Carrie Marshall
Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.