Regulation killed BBC's attempt to rival Netflix "The birth of the iPlayer itself had been difficult, according to a source present at the time in the BBC, who asked not to be named because they still work for the organisation. 'It faced huge resistance internally from TV,' they say. Digital was considered the 'weird sibling' of television and radio before the internet content boom, and commissioners in traditional broadcast were worried digital services would cannibalise their audiences. Some were still stuck in a 20th century mentality, and couldn’t understand the appeal of on-demand viewing.

'There was lots of ‘Why would anyone watch our expensively made TV on a laptop?’ views,' the BBC source says. Digital terrestrial television had just begun, and few households owned high-definition laptop screens."