As far as my knowledge is concerned, the BBC is an autonomous public service broadcaster that operates under a Royal Charter. Within the United Kingdom its work is funded principally by an annual television license fee, which is charged to all United Kingdom households, companies and organizations using any type of equipment to record and/or receive live television broadcasts; the level of the fee is set annually by the British Government and agreed by Parliament. Outside the UK, the BBC World Service has provided services by direct broadcasting and re-transmission contracts by sound radio since the inauguration of the BBC Empire Service, and more recently by television and online. Though sharing some of the facilities of the domestic services, particularly for news and current affairs output, the World Service has a separate Managing Director, and its operating costs have historically been funded mainly by direct grants from the UK government.
As we all know, the original BBC iplayer service was launched undergoing a five month long trial of five thousand broadband users. The BBC iplayer came under criticism for the delay in launch, rebranding and cost to BBC license-fee payers, as no finished product had been released after four years of development. A new, improved BBC iplayer service then had another very limited user trial. Most radio programmes can be accessed globally, with the exception of a few programmes, mainly sports broadcasts that are affected by rights issues.
I recommend everyone to go through http://www.watch-bbc-iplayer.com/ for further information.
