UK Streaming TV Needs Merging, Bringing Together

14:42.04 - Friday 6th June 2008   (Link to This Entry)

Streaming TV in the UK is a royal pain in the backside at the moment, because all the big TV companies have their own standard and their own site. With the BBC iPlayer, ITV's Catchup, Channel 4 On Demand and now the Sky bringing the Sky Player into the arena, Joe Internet User needs to browse at least four websites to see what you've missed.

What we need is a centralised, platform-independent streaming catchup TV website where the big companies can include their own channels into a compiled TV Guide covering the last week (or however long the programmes are available for). Imagine going to a website and being able to view all the stuff from the past week from all the available channels in one place - no flicking between tabs on your browser and waiting for more pages to load.

Users would be far more inclined to flick between channels rather than sitting around on the same TV website, but since it's a catchup service and not a live service, this shouldn't affect the actual channels. Merging the feeds and using standardised Flash player interface (I hate Flash as much as the next developer, but it works, and works well) would remove confusion between formats, and life would just be so much easier.

Companies can serve the streams from their own servers to alleviate clogging of the tubes, and of course they can continue to show their own stuff on their respective websites, but a common unified interface would be a complete and utter winner.

Of course, none of the companies will take the initiative, so it will end up being a hack by some talented teenager along the lines of the PS3 iPlayer website. I might even have a go myself if nothing happens for a while (and I'd blog it) and I find myself without projects. I can't be the only person to have thought of this though.

Updated 4th July '08
K pointed out this news article from the BBC's site - it appears the formerly-terrestrial channels 1-4 want to band together against Sky to do exactly what I've outlined above. I truly believe this is a step in the right direction, and as long as it remains platform-independent and easy to use, it'll be brilliant.