The BBC has announced a September 2005 trial of its interactive media player (iMP) content delivery technology, which will see broadband users able to watch TV and radio programmes over the Internet.

The trial will offer the ability to search and filter about 190 hours of TV programmes and 310 radio programmes, plus local content and selected feature films. Shows such as "Holby City" and "Top Gear" will be available for seven days after they have aired.

IMP will function as a peer-to-peer network, so that content will be exchanged between users, and a digital rights management system will be put in place to ensure that only BBC licence fee payers can watch and listen to programmes.

The broadcaster has also recently announced plans for a Creative Archive, which lets licence fee payers download and alter selected material from its vast catalogue of content, as well as BBC Backstage, which provides publicly available data feeds of BBC content.

We look forward to this service and hope that the quality is good enough without having to consume too much of that ever valued broadband bandwidth.