BBC iPlayer on iPhone?

The iPod Touch and iPhone Safari browser are recognised by the iPlayer website as running on mobile devices. The iPlayer then changes to use a mobile interface and it is this interface that blocks use of the iPod Touch/iPhone if it detects that the IP address is outside the UK. Hence you cannot use the iPlayer to play Radio and Television with neither the iPod Touch nor the iPhone on networks outside the UK. It’s really annoying considering that Radio is already available (since years) through a electrically thirsty PC but not through a more environmentally friendly (from power consumption perspective) iPod Touch/iPhone.

I got the following mail from the BBC about this issue, so there may be some hope in the future:

"I understand you are experiencing problems accessing Radio programmes on iPod Touch in Germany. I'm afraid currently Radio programmes are not available on iPod Touch outside UK. We can't commit at this time to which devices we will make available outside UK but we are working on other ways to make BBC iPlayer available. It is our aim to make it available on as many platforms as possible."

It is specifically blocked in the USA and other countries.

The BBC sells its television content to other countries show by show. Those shows then have their own licensing and royalty fees. In the US, for example, many of the shows are split between Public Television and BBC America. The rights are then owned by those stations, not by the BBC in the US. Neither BBC America nor Public Television, nor iTunes are willing to let you watch a UK show before they have purchased it, licensed it, and are showing it on their own station, where they make money from cable, commercials, and other revenue-related sources.

You can't stream any content from iPlayer outside the UK on your iPhone.

When shows are released, they will show up in places like iTunes; Hulu; etc. in the US, other apps in other countries.

But what is funny is the fact the one of the channels they have in the iPlayer is "BBC World Service".

If the content there isn't defined to be heard/viewed worldwide, than I don't know what would be.

😉

Sorry to detract from the original poster's question but on a similar issue; why doesn't BBC live streaming work on the iPhone in the UK? I wanted to watch the Open Golf last week via wifi but it wouldn't let me. Call me naive but doesn't it use the same software as far as the iplayer is concernced?

stolzy wrote:

RonAnnArbor wrote:

You can't stream any content from iPlayer outside the UK on your iPhone.

You miss my point - the content I want to view on the iPhone is available outside the UK on iPlayer on a computer, justt not on an iPhone

Agreed. The difference is that the BBC content is accessible through a Real Player Add-in. That doesn't appear to be available in the iPhone Safari app, as far as I can find.

Message was edited by: parrycm

The original poster doesn't say, but presumably it's BBC radio that he's trying to listen to on his iPhone and not watch TV as while BBC radio is available world wide on PC and Mac, it needs Real Player which isn't available on the iPhone. You can't even listen to BBC radio using iPlayer within the UK. TV is a totally different matter and it is not - officially at least - available outside the UK at all, and neither is live TV streaming available on the iPhone within the UK, although it is on PC and Mac. It's all to do with the streaming format apparently. But you can watch catch up TV on the iPhone in the UK as it apparently uses a different format.

It's not strictly true that you can watch BBC i>Player programmes outside the UK on a Mac or PC. I regularly travel to Europe and Russia and it has never, ever worked for me on a PC or Mac. Are you using a VPN connection on your PC or Mac that effectively converts the French IP address to a UK IP address?

When you look at the BBC's FAQs, it is due to licencing restrictions as non-UK countries' channels will pay big-bucks for some of these shows to attract viewers and they don't want that potential audience viewing them on the internet instead.

Message was edited by: epsilon delta

As I said before above, both radio AND television is blocked on the iPhone and iPod Touch outside the UK. You can receive radio on a normal laptop via the iPlayer anywhere in the world through the internet. However you cannot receive radio on the iPod Touch or iPhone outside the UK. Use of a VPN or Proxy on the iPhone or iPod Touch does work, however its use breaks the BBC's terms and conditions of use for the iPlayer, so there are legal reprecussions.

I'm in Australia. I cannot speak for television, nor have I attempted to use iPlayer on my iPhone.

I can, however, confirm that BBC Radio 3 (and presumably the other BBC radio stations) can be streamed in Australia on an iPhone using a suitable 3rd-party app, e.g. Fstream or Internet Radio Box. In fact BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 are in the presets for Radio Box. For Fstream you need to enter the station manually using the url for the stream. This link conveniently lists the relevant streaming urls:
http://bbcstreams.com/

Message was edited by: frindley

I got the BBCi player to work on my iPhone with no problem. I am based in the USA. I had to use a UK based proxy address to allow it to work.