The unique way the BBC is twice-funded

One of the main things that's struck me about the download version of the iPlayer after having used it for a few months now is the needlessly short 7-day catch-up period, as well as the fact that programmes you've downloaded disappearing 30 days after you've downloaded them even though they're protected by DRM, so I fail to see why the 30 days couldn't be extended to say 60 or 90 days.

In comparison, Channel 4's 4oD and ITV's ITV.com offerings both provide a 30-day catch-up period. So why is the BBC's only 7-day? Well, it looks like the BBC has set it intentionally low so that it can flog programmes back to us via iTunes at £1.89 per programme, and programmes happen to appear on iTunes 7 days after they've been broadcast -- exactly the time at which you can no longer download or stream programmes from the iPlayer.

If the BBC provided a 30-day catch-up period then I wouldn't have any problem with them selling programmes on iTunes, and they could sell them on iTunes from the day they were broadcast as far as I'm concerned if there was a significantly longer catch-up period, but as things stand they seem to be deliberately using an unnecessarily short catch-up period as a way to catch people out that have missed programmes so that they can raise revenue from us, which is basically making us pay for programmes twice-over.

The BBC is also part of "Project Kangaroo", which is a joint-effort between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to launch a commercial Internet service charging people to download or stream TV, which is due to launch later this year. Again, the BBC is quoted as moving its content to Kangaroo after the iPlayer 7-day catch-up period.

This news seems to have largely sneaked under the radar so far, probably because although the iPlayer has been very successful since launch, obviously the vast majority of the public aren't using it yet, so this doesn't affect them yet, and presumably the BBC is counting on people accepting things as they are.