By climbing into bed with Microsoft by choosing Silverlight as the client technology (the commercials of which would be very interesting), ITV have instantly limited its customer base for ITV Player to only those viewers with modern Windows machines.

The BBC have been much more inclusive by choosing Flash for their competing iPlayer; it is supported by other operating systems, some set-top boxes and even games consoles. For example, visit BBC iPlayer from, say a PlayStation 3 and you'll be presented with an interface optimised specifically for viewing on that platform.

Come on, ITV! Get with the picture! If you base your business on advertising revenue, target as many viewers as possible!

In fact, I wonder if ITV Player has been a rush job to get to market as soon as possible after iPlayer? The re-branding of "Catch Up" to "ITV Player" is not complete, there is no ITV Player Help available, posts on this forum point to inconsistent behavior, testing appears to have been limited to a very narrow platform cross-section (even using the Moonlight OS Silverlight add on for Linux, the ITV player doesn't load in Firefox). It would certainly explain the Silverlight choice if Microsoft has offered support to the ITV board to get something to market as fast as possible.

B -

Could do better.