Britbox green light is good news for viewers

Dani Warner, the television expert at uSwitch.com believes the arrival of Britbox is good for UK viewers, however the biggest challenge will be to convince the public to pay for it on top of licence fee.

Britbox Tony Hall, BBC, and Carolyn McCall, ITV.

“Ofcom has effectively given the green light for the BBC and ITV to create a new rival to Netflix and Amazon Prime, which is exciting news for consumers. The ‘BritBox’ streaming service has already proved itself in North America. And this collaboration could help both networks retain viewers, who are spoilt for choice with so many on-demand services available.” – Dani Warner, TV Expert uSwitch.com

Earlier this week ITV and the BBC announced that Britbox, a streaming service jointly launched by both broadcasters will be priced at £5.99 per mouth in HD across multiple screens and devices and will offer a wide range of programming recently shown across ITV and BBC channels and will also bring to viewers ‘the largest collection of British boxsets’. There will also be series commissioned especially for Britbox that won’t be available anywhere else.

BritBox will have its own dedicated management team led by Reemah Sakaan, Group Director ITV SVOD. Both ITV and the BBC will support the launch of the service with a high-profile marketing and promotional campaign and will also look at how best to connect viewers between BritBox and their regular catch-up services, ITV Hub and BBC iPlayer. 

“The challenge will be convincing people to pay for content that they are accustomed to viewing for free — both on live TV and on catch up — as some may feel that this service should be covered by the licence fee they already pay.” – Dani Warner, TV Expert at uSwitch.com

Both broadcasters note that viewing programmes ‘on demand’ – as opposed to following a linear schedule – is increasing in popularity and that there is a real appetite amongst British viewers for a new streaming service alongside their current subscriptions. BritBox is being launched to fulfil this demand. The multi-genre service, with a strong focus on multi series drama boxsets, will have thousands of hours of much-loved British television available from launch.

Both ITV and the BBC will also provide a new and regular flow of fresh programmes as soon as they come out of their broadcast and catch-up windows ensuring that the content available is refreshed on a regular basis.

“BritBox will offer a considerably broader catalogue than either iPlayer or ITV Hub currently have available, which is the argument for the additional fee on top of the normal TV licence fee and, at £5.99 a month, costs less than its rivals.” – Dani Warner, TV Expert at uSwitch.com

The first show to be commissioned exclusively for the platform will be announced soon and available to subscribers from 2010. BritBox is an ITV-controlled venture, but as a founding partner, the BBC will contribute to the development of the core purposes and strategic direction of the venture.

ITV initially holds 90% and the BBC holds 10% of the equity, though the Beeb will have the option to acquire additional shares over time and ITV could bring in additional investors. 

“The hope for the BBC and ITV is that BritBox will enable them to keep the premium content they create, such as Bodyguard, which was produced by ITV, screened by the BBC but now streams on rival service Netflix.” – Dani Warner, TV Expert at uSwitch.com