Due in no small part to the success of the BBC's iPlayer service, the market for on-demand TV services is set to double by 2009.

The BBC iPlayer allows users to watch programs from the past seven days free of charge by playing them direct on the BBC iPlayer website or downloading them to their computer.

According to media research organisation 'Screen Digest' around 800m free-to-view streams/downloads were performed by UK households in 2007. This figure is set to almost double to 1.5 billion this year and mushroom to 2.8 billion by 2012.

The BBC has stolen a march on its on-demand rivals by capturing 37% of the domestic market.

Along with ITV and Channel 4, the BBC will provide another on-demand service, Kangaroo, later this year. Other notable players in the on-demand arena include BT's Freeview/on-demand offering - Vision, Sky and Virgin Media.

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