BBC Worldwide officially closes Global iPlayer

The BBC’s commercial arm will officially end the BBC Global iPlayer on-demand platform within the next six weeks.

A BBC Worldwide statement said the subscription service was “closing permanently” in the month between May 26 and June 26.

“Any subscription will be honoured in full and auto-renewals will be switched off automatically after your final subscription term during this period,” the statement noted.

“You will be able to watch your downloads until the day your subscription lapses. This date can be found on your Subscriptions tab on the iTunes store.”

This comes after the UK pubcaster’s commercial unit announced its intention to end the international version of the BBC iPlayer back in October 2013. Since then it has been operational in some territories such as Australia.

As Digital TV Europe reported in December, the BBC is planning to introduce electronic sell-through platform BBC Store in the UK this year, with BBCWW currently assessing whether to adapt a subscription or transactional model for the global version.

The British iPlayer is unaffected by the changes.