I had a dig and found out the following - I cannot vouch for the facts but it would seem "logical" (perhaps to a politician)
Due to the way the BBC is funded (in the UK without adverts, public licence etc etc cannot raise money from competitive sources like Sky etc) they have to be clever.
They are not allowed to "sell" to UK residents
They are allowed to sell material to people outside the UK.
So they need to drive revenue by running
iPlayer to UK people only....
A web site to outside the UK which can have advertising and other revenue streams associated.
Of course we all know that people on the interweb are to stupid to work out how to go around this (search google for proxy and iPlayer) and so it will work perfectly.
I smell a dinosaur getting close to the roaster.
Sad
