The BBC has announced that it's bringing its popular iPlayer platform to Windows Phone. In a blog post, the British media giant says that it's signed a deal with Microsoft that will bring the player, which lets Brits stream BBC programming over the internet, to Windows Phones in "the near future."

Rather than releasing a native app, it seems that the BBC will tweak its mobile website to work with Windows Phone devices — in the past it's been totally incompatible. It's not clear if it'll be wrapping the mobile website in an app — the BBC does say that there'll be a Live Tile available — but that seems likely. BBC iPlayer is already available on Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and through desktop browsers. We've reached out to the BBC to see if its iPlayer service will be available outside of the UK on Windows Phone — mobile users on other platforms are able to access the global version of the service.