BBC goes live with iPlayer Partner Link

Posted on 18 Feb 2011 at 10:15

The BBC has finally taken its Partner Link programme live, allowing iPlayer users to search for and watch shows from other providers' video on demand services.

The Partner Link programme, which the BBC has been promising since May, ties third-party commercial services into the BBC's licence-fee funded iPlayer platform, allowing users to use a single service to search for and watch programming from a variety of providers.

While partner content isn't streamed through the BBC's iPlayer service directly, a search will bring up third-party programming and offer a link to that provider's own video on demand service to watch a given programme.

Partners signed up to the programme so far include ITV, Channel 4, Five, SeeSaw.com, S4C, and MSN Player. All the programmes available on each platform will now appear as links within the iPlayer web and device apps.

"We think BBC Online should serve as a hub to support other UK sites and want to double the traffic we send externally," claimed the BBC's Paul Clarke. "already the BBC News product is one of the top 5 sites driving referrals to UK newspapers, adding value to the UK online economy and our audiences: this partnership is a good example of how the BBC iPlayer can follow in those footsteps."

The 'deep-linking' system is live on the BBC's iPlayer now, with third-party programming appearing in searches. It's not yet known if the BBC is planning even deeper integration, such as the ability to watch third-party programmes from within iPlayer itself.

Author: Gareth Halfacree

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