Newspapers force BBC to delay free iPhone apps

The BBC's apps were due to be launched in April

The BBC has announced that it will delay the launch of its free news and sport iPhone apps due to concerns raised by the newspaper industry that the broadcaster is muscling in on its territory.

The BBC’s governing body, the BBC Trust, will now examine whether or not the new apps would harm efforts by its commercial rivals to succeed with their own mobile offerings.

The free applications were due to be launched in April, but groups such as the Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA) claim that the BBC is overstepping its boundaries with the new apps.

“This is not, as the BBC argues, an extension of its existing online service, but an intrusion into a very tightly defined, separate market,” said NPA director David Newell in a public statement.

“Not for the first time, the BBC is preparing to muscle into a nascent market and trample over the aspirations of commercial news providers.”

He added that the NPA urges the BBC Trust to block the plans, which “threaten to strangle an important new market for news and information”.

Lynne Anderson, Communications Director at NPA added that the iPhone represents a real opportunity to regional and national newspapers but thinks that the BBC already has enough content available to iPhone users.

“Paid-for and free smartphone applications are a very important to newspapers and the BBC has itself acknowledged that it needs to be careful not to overstep its boundaries,” she said.

“It doesn’t really need to enter this [iPhone application] environment, as it already has a lot of content online that is already easily accessible from smartphones.”

The BBC Trust will now investigate whether the apps fall under the terms of the BBC’s existing service licence or constitute an entirely new offering.