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The British Broadcast Corp. plans to sell some of its
popular television shows in the United
Kingdom over iTunes, the online retailer
owned by Apple Inc., the London-based broadcaster revealed Tuesday.
Popular shows, including “Spooks,” “The Catherine Tate Show ,”
“Little Britain,” “Life on Mars,” “Torchwood” and “The Mighty Boosh” will be
available to downloads for GBP 1.89 per episode and viewed on an Apple
Macintosh, PC or iPod, BBC said.
“We want to give audiences a wide variety of options on how
and where to view their favorite BBC shows. With more people now choosing to
watch TV shows on their iPods, fans can now enjoy those shows wherever they
are,” Simon Danker, director of digital media at BBC Worldwide, said.
The service will not be available outside the U.K.
The broadcaster currently makes most of its shows available
for download free through its iPlayer service in the U.K. for one week after they have
appeared on television. ITV PLC, BBC’s main commercial competitor, has also put
many of its shows online.
The strategy follows similar approaches by commercial broadcasters
on both sides of the Atlantic to sell programs
over the iTunes platform. Also, the deal with Apple is the latest in a string
of content deals signed with third parties, after BBC signed deals with YouTube
and MySpace to share short clips.
BBC Worldwide is set to open its own TV download shop
alongside Channel 4 and ITV later this year under the codename Project
Kangaroo, BBC reported.
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