BBC to Sell Television Shows via Apple’s iTunes

The British Broadcast Corp. plans to sell some of its popular television shows in the United Kingdom over iTunes, the online retailer owned by Apple Inc., the London-based broadcaster revealed Tuesday.

Popular shows, including “Spooks,” “The Catherine Tate Show ,” “Little Britain,” “Life on Mars,” “Torchwood” and “The Mighty Boosh” will be available to downloads for GBP 1.89 per episode and viewed on an Apple Macintosh, PC or iPod, BBC said.

“We want to give audiences a wide variety of options on how and where to view their favorite BBC shows. With more people now choosing to watch TV shows on their iPods, fans can now enjoy those shows wherever they are,” Simon Danker, director of digital media at BBC Worldwide, said.

The service will not be available outside the U.K.

The broadcaster currently makes most of its shows available for download free through its iPlayer service in the U.K. for one week after they have appeared on television. ITV PLC, BBC’s main commercial competitor, has also put many of its shows online.

The strategy follows similar approaches by commercial broadcasters on both sides of the Atlantic to sell programs over the iTunes platform. Also, the deal with Apple is the latest in a string of content deals signed with third parties, after BBC signed deals with YouTube and MySpace to share short clips.

BBC Worldwide is set to open its own TV download shop alongside Channel 4 and ITV later this year under the codename Project Kangaroo, BBC reported.