Speaking in London this week at Screen Digest's conference on the future of online media distribution, the BBC's director of future media and technology, Erik Huggers, said that he would like to unblock the access to the iPlayer for international users.
‘The internet is, by definition, a global medium, yet today we are artificially blocking international access to the iPlayer. That's a problem, in my mind, and a big challenge for the industry.'
The iPlayer has been a huge success since it launched last Christmas and an international version could pit it against other major online catch-up services such the US's primary offering - Hulu.
The iPlayer service available through Virgin Media's cable service alone served 49m videos since June. Huggers outlined that PC users still account for the vast majority of iPlayer viewers with 85% of the audience, with Nintendo Wii and Linux both accounting for 1%.
He said that there was also increasing popularity the iPlayer being used on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple Mac users now account for one in 10 iPlayer viewers, while iPhone and iPod Touch owners account for a further 3%.
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