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BBC iPlayer row: The government speaks
But will 16,071 people be happy with this answer...

By Tim Ferguson

Published: Friday 07 September 2007

The government has responded to an e-petition protesting against the way in which the BBC's iPlayer has been developed.

The 10 Downing Street e-petition, signed by 16,071 people urges the Prime Minister to make the BBC develop its online on-demand TV service - currently only available to Windows XP users - for non-Windows platforms.

But the government response reaffirmed that the Beeb's independent governing body, the BBC Trust, has committed to the corporation making the service available for different platforms.

The response from the Prime Minister's office said: "The BBC Trust made it a condition of approval for the BBC's on-demand services that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the BBC meets this demand as soon as possible. They will measure the BBC's progress on this every six months and publish the findings."

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The BBC has already said it wants to make its content as widely available as possible and that an iPlayer for Apple Macs and Microsoft Vista is on its "critical path" for this year.

But not everyone is happy - Mark Taylor, president of the Open Source Consortium - which has met with the BBC Trust over the issue said "the situation hasn't changed at all as far as we're concerned. It's entirely a non-answer".