The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is considering partnerships with private businesses to sell music downloads.

The publicly funded broadcaster is testing software called MyBBCPlayer to let users download its TV and radio programming, and plans to use its powerful presence to take its place among Internet media giants like Google and Yahoo.

BBC director-general Mark Thompson flagged a move into selling songs online in a speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

“Everything we know about the online world suggests that it’s the big brands – the eBays, the Amazons, the Microsofts – that punch through and the BBC is one of the big brands,” Thompson told the festival.

The BBC’s website is the fifth most popular in Britain, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

It already makes recent radio programs available for post-broadcast listening on its website and in recent months users downloaded 1.4 million copies of nine Beethoven symphonies the broadcaster offered for free.

Thompson says people listening to BBC Radio 1 online could eventually click on a link to buy a song being broadcast.

He says the idea that “there needs to be a vast cordon sanitaire” between public service and commercial transactions “flies in the face of the way the public actually use the media now”.

The BBC plans to a launch a trial incorporating parts of MyBBCPlayer next month, with a full roll-out in 2006.

The plan is to offer on-demand TV and radio programming, live streaming of BBC channels and access to the broadcaster’s huge archives.