The BBC has committed £131.2m of licence fee money to the iPlayer at a time when TV over the internet is in vogue.
Despite early problems, the BBC says that it is pleased with iPlayer's performance and that it offers value for money.
"BBC iPlayer will offer hundreds of hours of network, national and regional TV every week, from all of the BBC's channels," a spokeswoman says. "The offer reflects the breadth and depth of the BBC's output at its very best."
With Channel 4's 4oD and Sky's Anytime launched last year and ITV offering programmes streamed live on its recently relaunched website, the major broadcasters are finally delivering.
With the impending ubiquity of TV over the internet, what commercial opportunities are there to be found? What are the early issues for the media owners and agencies involved and what pricing model should be applied?
BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, is remaining tight-lipped about the launch of a commercial iPlayer that it hopes will recoup much of the initial outlay; other than to say it won't arrive until next year. BBC Worldwide is monitoring how the launch of the iPlayer goes and is consulting with the industry on how best to make the commercial version a success.
Omar Bakhshi, head of user experience at the media research firm iBurbia, believes the BBC should be trying to get the iPlayer on as many platforms as possible.
Project Kangaroo
"It's important to be on the likes of Homechoice and BT Vision to somehow give people a chance to use it in comfortable surroundings; otherwise it will stay with early adopters," says Bakhshi.
One major avenue for the broadcasters to go down is "Project Kangaroo", which would see one universal interface to access all of the broadcasters' online TV offerings.
"One main barrier broadcasters face is that there are so many online TV services, which doesn't do much for the consumer," says Bakhshi. "There is definitely an opportunity to develop one consumer offering."
Project Kangaroo would reportedly do for online TV services what Freeview has done for mainstream TV channels - aggregate them and make them more accessible to the public. Negotiations are at too early a stage for the broadcasters to go public with plans.
And with the market in such an embryonic state, ITV.com has come in for criticism from media agencies for the rates it is charging - rates that Gary Knight, brand partnership director at ITV, staunchly defends.
"It's too early to be negotiating on price," he says. "You can't charge more than a client is willing to pay. At the moment it's not a market, because there's not enough out there. Over the next year we'll find out if there should still be a premium when agencies and advertisers value ITV against other services."
Paul Constantine, board account director at media agency Zed, says the issue is not so much price, but measurement - and creating the right content to fit in with TV on the internet.
"A bigger issue than pricing is what sort of audience levels we're getting," he says. "When advertising on 4oD at the moment we're completely reliant on the metrics coming back from Channel 4. We'd like to be able to use our own and third party tracking data.
"In terms of content, we could have a big disconnect if we're not careful. We're reliant on creative agencies creating the right content."
Creative issue
Simon Mansell, managing director of TBG London, ran one of the first campaigns across video- on-demand services for its client Moneysupermarket.com.
"There haven't been major problems with pricing," says Mansell. "We've been talking to our clients about major campaigns running on these sites, having tested a few. One thing that holds up the process is changing the creative. Normal TV ads are too long and we have to work out what suits."
Content seems to be the key. Not just advertising, but the content on the services themselves.
"The big battle that's going on is not a technology war, but a content war," says ITV's Knight. "At the moment there's not even enough content to fill five channels for 24 hours a day. Joost and other services are after our content because there isn't anywhere else to get it from.
"At the moment I think the technology is ahead of the consumer and advertiser. It will be an interesting 2008 journey - post-launch phase - when we find out the realities of operating in this world."
OFFERINGS FROM THE RIVAL BROADCASTERS
- The BBC iPlayer has launched in public beta test mode, but what do other broadcasters have to offer?
- Five Download offers some of Five's shows on the web up to seven days before they are broadcast on TV. Five charges for the privilege - for 99p viewers get a 48-hour rental of a Grey's Anatomy programme. An ad-funded download service is expected, but no date has been set for launch
- Sky Anytime is Sky's offering that makes its shows available on TV, PC and mobile. Sky likens Anytime to a TV jukebox, enabling people to download highlights, as well as full-length programmes. A Sky subscription is required for most content, but sports highlights are available without one
- 4oD is Channel 4's video- on-demand service. It offers a free ad-funded seven-day catch-up service and charges for archived content. As well as being available online, 4oD can be accessed through Virgin Media, BT Vision and Tiscali TV
- ITV.com, ITV's recently relaunched portal, offers click- to-play programming supported by advertising. No downloads are required. Instead, the content is streamed over a broadband connection.