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Ashley Highfield, the broadcaster's head of Future Media & Technology, believes that a move to rentals could enable the provision of iPlayer downloads for Macs.

Currently Mac users can only stream programming from the last seven days, whereas Windows can download and store videos for up to a month. Apple TV could change that, Highfield says.

"This, coupled with Apple's (long anticipated) move to a rental model, means that the we can look to getting BBC iPlayer onto this platform too, as we should be able to use the rental functionality to allow our programmes to be downloaded, free, but retained for a time window, and then erased, as our rightsholders currently

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insist," he writes on the BBC Internet Blog.

Highfield says that other methods for getting IP to the TV have failed the "can my mum do it?" test, as he noted in a previous blog post, including the original version of Apple TV.

That Apple TV can function independently from a computer means it would also be an option for Linux users, currently in the same boat as Mac owners.

However, they are less likely to pay £199 for the privilege of downloading DRM-restricted content to a box that has proved resistant to hackers' probing.

But Apple TV is not first on Highfield's to-do list; first he wants iPlayer on cable - for his mum.

"I want a solution that my mum can install, and to this end, getting BBC iPlayer onto the Virgin cable TV platform in the spring will be an important step for the BBC."