BBC digital head defends iPlayer
October 31, 2007
Ashley Highfield, head of the BBC’s Future Media and Technology unit, defended the iPlayer in an interview with silicon.com. Asked: “Has criticism of the iPlayer, both around non-PC versions and DRM, been fair?” Highfield replied: “No. It’s understandable if we’d only ever intended to launch an XP-only iPlayer but that was never the plan. When we launch services we will always try to get to the largest part of that universe. The PC universe is the largest part of that. It was just the starting point. By Christmas we will have a streaming solution for Mac and Linux users. It was always part of our work plan but maybe we didn’t communicate it fully or widely enough.”