Five have just released a live streaming TV app for the Europa League football. Apparently streams over wifi and 3g. Not tried it myself.
She'll need to setup a UK account in iTunes, with a valid UK billing address, then she can download apps on the UK store from anywhere in the world iTunes won't delete it when your wife returns. I've got an
app (Amazon Kindle) that I got with a US account that I setup. Works fine. You don't need to be physically in a specific country to download from that iTunes store, you can do it from home, you just need an account for that store.