Two of these stations in the UK (BBC and CH4) let you download as wmv at resolution of 672x544, and the compression doesn't look too bad.
After you download these, you can use a program called "FairUse4WMV" (download here http://all-streaming-media.com/remove-D ... Player.htm ) which will remove the license without re-encoding the file so you can share it with other people, or edit it
Note : this software will only remove the license if you have the license installed to view them in the first place, it will not "crack" any license. From what info I can gather nobdoy has managed to do that yet. (ps. if you have problems with download link try from internet explorer, some browsers have cookies issue)
Does anybody know any other TV station that allows you to download previously aired programs? Perhaps we can exploit this further!