Streetlife

What a shame - but (apparently) it was available over the internet live on the BBC somehow .. friends in Australia watched it that way.  As did some Canadians.  Never thought to ask them how tho .. if he trawls the BBC website there might be a link there.

Well since you clearly both have computers you could download BBC comedy podcasts, burn them to a cd, and send him dozens at a time. Or point him to youtube.

Yes, it's annoying and curious why some videos aren't available to us here or them there. We thought that this was an international event so why the censorship?

there's already some of the highlights on youtube.  You can do identity cloaking (which fools iplayer into thinking you are connecting from a UK ip address) but you'd have to know what you were doing a little bit technically

Reg, I don't know how to do that. I'll tell him about Youtube.

Hello. I used to work at the BBC and some content is blocked from international viewers / listeners / users due to the licence fee and royalty payments. Thus he may not be able to access the R4 content he wants, at least not without a fee. The commercial arm of the BBC - BBC Worldwide - is responsible for overseas broadcasts and content availability and has to pay the BBC to licence it so usually charges.

As for the opening ceremony again I would have thought there would be intonational broadcast rights and either a US broadcaster would purchase the BBC's output or the IOC would licence the content abroad. This is not censorship. It's not being blocked to him. He migh just be looking in the wrong place. It is not the BBC's responsibility to broadcast worldwide, it is the IOC.

That all said, I'd be surprised, given that the Olympics is an international event, regardless of where it is hosted, if there wasn't a way to see it locally. But are you really asking how he can see it now, i.e on catch up? Again rights may be restricted and that comes down to money, sadly.

I hope I've made sense.

As MissyC says, BBC will block access to iPlayer content to anyone outside of UK - both to protect its own rights and to comply with the Olympics contract, which would have stipulated the territories BBC can show this content in. I believe US Olympic rights are held by NBC, so their website may be the best port of call. 

Sorry, don't know much about radio content, so can't help with that one.

I believe that NBC broadcast the Ceremony - might be worth looking on their website, to see if they have anything similar to the BBC's iPlayer.

Thanks all very much. I have sent the info to Nick.