BBC to bring Live Restart to iPlayer on YouView and NOW TV

The BBC is keen to keep up with other popular streaming options – and although iPlayer is not a direct competitor to the likes of Netflix and Amazon, it wants to make the service “more personal”. As long as you’re signed in with a BBC ID, iPlayer will do the rest and automatically cue up your episodes on other devices.

Among the changes is the expansion of the My Programmes feature.

In future, My Programmes will also recommend programmes based on viewing habits.

BBC is also rolling out a Live Restart feature that it says will enable users to jump back to the beginning of a show in instances of live broadcasts.

In addition, following its introduction of subtitles for all pre-recorded programmes on iPlayer, audio description functionality is now available on iPlayer on TV platforms, computers, mobiles and tablets.

The BBC has unveiled a host of new features for the iPlayer, which it claims will “transform how you watch your favourite BBC TV shows” on the catch-up service.

Cross-device pause and resume – the ability to pause a stream on one device and then pick it up on another – has also been added, as has the My Programmes section, which already works on the iPlayer website, but will now expand to mobile devices. It’s now being added to YouView, Roku, Sky’s NOW TV, Amazon Fire TV, the Xbox One and a “range of connected TV sets”, as well as the iPlayer mobile and tablet apps “in the coming year”.

According to a recent Ofcom study, it is the largest video on-demand provider in the UK with 31 per cent of adults having used the service over the past 12 months.

Head of the player unit Taylor Watt expects the new features to give users who like streaming content a better experience while providing easy access to various programs.

According to BBC stats, 196 million TV programming requests were logged in July, compared to 165 million a year earlier and up 1% from 194 million in June.