Paxman: BBC forcing viewers to pay twice

BBC viewers are paying for its programmes twice over if they want to re-watch them, Jeremy Paxman has complained, in an attack on the iplayer catch-up service.

All BBC content disappears from iplayer after 30 days, but its most popular shows are available via Amazon, Netflix and other US media companies. Viewers have to pay to revisit Doctor Foster or Planet Earth.

Paxman said he was watching the BBC’S 2008 adaptation of Little Dorrit “and I have had to pay Amazon £16.99 for the privilege of having the thing streamed to my home”. The BBC box set can be bought for £9.99.

The University Challenge host added: “Surely, you think, it’s available on the much-trumpeted iplayer. It is not.

“There is a simple question here: Why should British viewers have to add to the profits of vast American corporations to see something that they have already paid for through their licence fee?”