Ofcom agrees to BBC DRM on Freeview HD

Ofcom has published a statement on the BBC only allowing access to the electronic program guide (EPG) for their HD channels if the receiver supports content management technology.

Currently standard definition channels do not need to utilise content management (and Ofcom specifically disallows content management on SD channels).

Presumably the BBC do not want services such as TVCatchup.com to rebroadcast their HD channels (if that’s what they’re doing on SD channels – TVCatchup don’t really give much away on how their service works) as they’ll want people to use services such as SeeSaw as they are part of the group that runs it and thus gain revenue from it.

With a new generation of tablet devices coming on to the market, HD IPTV services are going to attract the attention of both traditional broadcasters and new services who want to capitalise on this new market of HD ready devices.