US Edition 
BBC offers Doctor Who episodes on Facebook
The BBC’s commercial arm is to begin selling access episodes of Doctor Who to viewers outside Britain via Facebook, in a first for a broadcaster.
The move comes as the dominant social network is poised to become a major player in the market for films and TV online.
From this week Facebook users in Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand will be offered 29 Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s to the 2000s for rent, for 48 hours at a time. Each story, sometimes originally broadcast more than one episode, will cost 15 Facebook credits, or just under £1.
The most recent series, featuring Matt Smith as the Time Lord, will not be available at launch, however.
BBC Worldwide also plans to exploit other popular shows on Facebook, including Top Gear, which already has 12 million fans on the site.
Facebook is moving into video distribution after creating a new market in videogames by serving up casual gaming hits such as FarmVille to millions. As the first broadcaster to rent its shows via the website, the BBC is following Warner Bros, which began offering films such as Inception in March.
“As we have grown internationally, we've seen through our Facebook channel that fans who are loving the new series are asking for a guide into our rich Doctor Who back catalogue,” said BBC Worldwide chief executive John Smith.
To pull in fans the Facebook catalogue includes "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy", a 1988 story that is not currently available on DVD.
The launch was announced as new figures confirmed Doctor Who as the BBC's biggest export. It is number three in the US iTunes download-to-own chart behind Glee and Mad Men, and revenue from the franchise rose 49 per cent last year.