And likewise none of the streaming options for American shows are available in the UK.
Now, with American shows, I think there could easily be a good business model - we've seen English TV channels pick up American shows (sometimes running almost in sync with America, more often than not running a year or two behind) with success. Examples include The West Wing, Friends, Glee, Will and Grace, Family Guy, CSI and so on. So I think there could be enough of an audience over here to be worth doing it.
But iPlayer for non-UK viewers, it just isn't feasible. Firstly, BBC have the content licensed for UK viewing only, and they can't pay extra for international viewers because they are funded by the public (TV license over here). For the BBC website, international viewers see adverts, but that model can't be extended to iPlayer for a few reasons. Firstly, and least importantly, BBC never puts advertising into its shows, and they don't want to go against that, even for an international audience. That could be got around quite easily. Secondly, selling video adverts is a lot more complex (from a sales point of view, not technical) than shoving them into a website, it would take more work from them. And finally, if they were to sell adverts and open up iPlayer to an international audience, I doubt they would make enough revenue from the adverts to justify internationally licensing the content, i.e. there just wouldn't be enough people watching it.
iPlayer for non-UK viewers is actually pretty easy to get.
Rent a virtual private server on any of the many UK VPS services. Then use get_iplayer[1] to download TV and radio programmes when you want to.
Although I live in the UK (and pay a TV license), I use this method because it's much more convenient. It doesn't require flash, lets me keep the programme for as long as I want, and downloads are really fast. For example I can grab a 2 hour film from iPlayer into a .flv file in about 15-20 minutes.
Technically they could, but it would mean creating and managing a new license fee system.
Right now there's no enforcement of the license fee, just the knowledge that, to watch live broadcasts (either on TV or online) you must have a license, and if a TV license inspector catches you, you'll be in trouble.
With the iPlayer service, if you watch any of the live-streaming channels and you don't have a TV License you will eventually get a letter informing you that you need to pay the license fee. Fail to obtain the TV License after that point and you are subject to the normal fines.
I think the BBC must have some form of tie-in with the ISPs as I know a number of people that have had this happen to them.
I'm regularly tunnelling all my traffic through a UK VPS (not for geolocation regions, I'm in the UK myself anyway), and never had any issues watching iPlayer.
And if I watched to avoid it, I could always use something like www.tvcatchup.com to watch the live content, and just go onto the iPlayer for VOD content (for which you don't need a license).
I wonder - traditionally a TV license is per household, not per person, meaning that if I want to watch on a TV in a friend's house, they need to have a license, not me. With internet access, how does that work. For example, say they were able to prove I had been watching iPlayer live streams in my house, what if it was a friend watching on their laptop, and they own a license? What if you're watching from a public WiFi or a 3G connection on a train? The "license for the house" doesn't quite translate.
They'd still need to differentiate between shows that they could show to a US viewer and ones which they couldn't (because they didn't have the rights to international distribution - for instance most sport, any drama they've bought in and so on).
Well, but isn't that what the whole problem is about? Doesn't matter if it's BBC, iTunes or Spotify - it's that the country-based licensing model doesn't work in the age of Internet.
Now, with American shows, I think there could easily be a good business model - we've seen English TV channels pick up American shows (sometimes running almost in sync with America, more often than not running a year or two behind) with success. Examples include The West Wing, Friends, Glee, Will and Grace, Family Guy, CSI and so on. So I think there could be enough of an audience over here to be worth doing it.
But iPlayer for non-UK viewers, it just isn't feasible. Firstly, BBC have the content licensed for UK viewing only, and they can't pay extra for international viewers because they are funded by the public (TV license over here). For the BBC website, international viewers see adverts, but that model can't be extended to iPlayer for a few reasons. Firstly, and least importantly, BBC never puts advertising into its shows, and they don't want to go against that, even for an international audience. That could be got around quite easily. Secondly, selling video adverts is a lot more complex (from a sales point of view, not technical) than shoving them into a website, it would take more work from them. And finally, if they were to sell adverts and open up iPlayer to an international audience, I doubt they would make enough revenue from the adverts to justify internationally licensing the content, i.e. there just wouldn't be enough people watching it.