News 

The future strategy was outlined by the director of the BBC's new media division, Ashley Highfield, who shared a platform with Microsoft boss Bill Gates at the Mix06 conference in Las Vegas. He said the BBC would work with a number of technology firms, such as Microsoft and Apple, to enable content delivery.

'Audience needs are changing. They want to consume media on their own

One means to this end, he believes, is the iMP. This takes advantage of p2p technology moving content around the Internet, provides on-demand access to digital TV and radio content.

'If we want to stay relevant in the digital age, the BBC must respond to this challenge by some seriously good technological innovation, resulting in products like the iMP, through partnerships such as this one with Microsoft.'

The BBC first announced trials of a TV downloads service in May 2005. These began in September. According to the BBC, around 30,000 people registered to take part in the trials. Of these, 5,000 were chosen, based on a representative cross section of the country.