Last Tango in Halifax, BBC
the BBC and ITV recognise how audiences are accessing their content and have produced a product that will make this content more accessible to more people.”
Yesterday, it emerged Channel 4 and Channel 5 are also in talks about joining the venture.
The plans have been unveiled 10 years after the Competition Commission vetoed a similar joint service, saying that British viewers “value” UK programmes and “do not regard other content as a good substitute”.
Since then, global rivals such as Netflix and Amazon have made their mark on British homes and demonstrated an appetite for US shows.
ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall said BritBox would not be competing directly with Netflix, but would be “complementary”. She said: “Netflix is global… when we’re creating content, we’re creating it for the UK… We’re not a substitute to Netflix – we’re complementary to Netflix.”
The service would be “very good for British creative industries, because we are putting more money into the British creative industry”, she added.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “People in Britain really do want to see a place where there is a home for British content… It will be very distinctive because that actually doesn’t exist in Britain today.”
The BBC and ITV said they have enjoyed success with their BritBox streaming service in the US.
Talks on the new service have been taking place for more than a year.
Broadcasting regulator Ofcom said: “We want to see broadcasters collaborating to keep pace with global players, by offering quality UK content that’s available to viewers whenever and however they want to watch it.” BRITAIN has an amazing telly heritage.
The BBC and ITV have produced some absolutely outstanding shows over the past 10 years and longer.
In the past, if you wanted to see them again, you bought a video, and in time a DVD or a Blu-ray. And more recently, you might download them.
But the world is changing fast. Not many people want to physically buy or download shows.
They want to stream them on their phones, tablets and TVs.
That is why we are creating BritBox – to make sure you have access to the shows you love in the way you increasingly now want to enjoy them.
It will have the biggest collection of UK content available on any service. If you like great dramas like McMafia, Last Tango in Halifax, and Les Miserables, they will all be on the service. If you like comedies like Gavin and Stacey, then that will be on the service as well.
And ITV will bring all their great content, like Broadchurch, to the service. It will also commission brand new shows, so it will be a fantastic offer.
The BBC and ITV have already launched a successful service in North America, which has more than half a million subscribers, proving we have the know-how to launch a service here.
At the same time, research with the British public shows that there is a real appetite for a new British streaming service in addition to their current subscriptions.
None of this will replace what you get from the licence fee.
You will always see BBC programmes on the BBC first and our ambition is that BBC programmes will all be free on iPlayer for at least a year – so we are also transforming iPlayer into an even better service. Everybody wins.
We have a world-beating TV industry. BritBox can help it thrive as investment in it grows. It’s never been a better time to be a viewer, however you are watching.
STREAMING COSTS
A basic plan for Netflix costs £5.99 per month Amazon Prime Video is £7.99 per month An Entertainment pass for TV shows on Now TV costs £7.99. Its movie offering costs £9.99.