Why You Can’t Use the BBC iPlayer

Many Anglophiles have had it happen to them. They’re surfing the BBC website, come across a cool video, try to play it and it says “Out of Area, unable to Play.”

Blasted!

Or you’ve tried playing around with the BBC’s revolutionary iPlayer, their online equivalent to Hulu, allowing you to watch hit BBC shows after they’ve aired. You pick your favorite show and boom, “Not Available in Your Area.”

Well, dammit, why can’t you watch the videos?

Many people are not aware that, in the UK, if you want a TV you are required to pay a tax, every year to keep it. This tax funds the BBC and keeps it commercial free. All content that the BBC produces belongs to all the people who pay the license fee. Because of this, the Brits don’t like the idea of the rest of the world skivving (British for leeching) off their great content when they aren’t paying for it.

There are also rights implications since the BBC makes a boatload of money licensing it’s works all over the world.

So, the BBC iPlayer and a lot of the video content on the BBC’s website is only available to people located in the UK. Despite this, there is still plenty of content available to outsiders, including all the radio stations and podcasts. Let’s hope they don’t change their minds about this. Though, they’ve started placing ads on their sites to international visitors to make them ‘pay their way,’ so to speak.

There are technical ways to get around the BBC iPlayer geographic restrictions. They involve fooling the BBC into thinking you’re in the UK. It’s not easy to do this, it will cost money and there is no guarantee that it works.

You’re better off just downloading your favorite British Shows via Bittorrent or paying for a service like The Telly that streams live British TV anywhere in the world, legally.

Looking for a way to watch British TV Live in the US or anywhere else in the world? Then Check out The Telly – the original UK TV Slingbox Service.