BBC Bigscreen iPlayer closes

Today the threat of the closure of BBC Bigsccreen iPlayer service became reality as people with equipment made before 2011 noticed that their service had been withdrawn by the BBC. The warning appeared that the service was closing appeared about a month ago and perfectly serviceable equipment has now become obsolete.  

The BBC claim that the Bigscreen service was only being used by about one percent of users and that it uses a completely different set of servers from the rest of the iplayer service and that this made it too expensive to run and hence an inefficient use of the license fee. The BBC also claim that the average life of a TV set means even those who had a brand new TV when it launched will probably be looking to upgrade soon.

Marcus Parnwell, executive product manager of the BBC's iPlayer clearly live in a different world from a lot of people if he thinks they can afford to replace a television every 4 years in an economic climate like today with falling standards of living. Although Bigscreen iPlayer was the BBC's first user interface designed for TVs that would work with a remote control its days didn't have be number, it was just bad design that they didn't think how to integrate the new services to be compatible with the old system. Other  streaming providers have been doing this for ages, so it is nothing new.

The people that will be affected by this service change will be those on low incomes and the older members of the population who, for what ever reason, can't afford to up grade their TV or the Blu-ray player, which is the sad thing. The thing is, this move by the BBC systematic of the commercial throw away technological society we live in today.