What’s better than BBC’s iPlayer? get_iplayer of course, a Perl script that rips programmes to your local machine.
I now have get_iplayer set up with cron to download TV programmes that I’m interested in (have a guess from the list below):
0 3 * * * cd Desktop && get_iplayer -l --nopurge --get Beatle 30 3 * * * cd Desktop && get_iplayer -l --nopurge --get Brooker 0 4 * * * cd Desktop && get_iplayer -l --nopurge --get Japan 30 4 * * * cd Desktop && get_iplayer -l --nopurge --get Horizon 0 5 * * * cd Desktop && get_iplayer -l --nopurge --get Buzzcocks
Update
Everyone points out in the comments that get_iplayer has a --pvr option that makes this even easier.
Richard WM Jones 
You could make this even easier by setting up a PVR search for each of these, and just running get_iplayer –pvr every day.
You might want to look at the “pvr” options of get_iplayer. You add programmes you’re interested in (based on search criteria such as ‘buzzcocks’) and then run one command regularly to make it go and fetch everything..
For example to add to the list:-
get_iplayer –type=radio “mitchell and webb sound” –pvradd “That Mitchell & Webb Sound”
To list the current programmes set for ‘recording’:-
get_iplayer –pvrlist
To actually download programmes:-
get_iplayer –pvr
Here’s the command line I use to download, which will try the HD versions first before dropping back to the manky iphone versions.
The –subdir is handy, because then all the programmes go in their own subdirectories.
Thanks. I’ve updated the article to add reference to PVR mode.