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Originally Posted by OLD BOY
I would appreciate a link to that, Den. I don't recollect such assessments being made - maybe I missed that.
As for why people would subscribe to Britbox, it's for the same reason so many people love the UKTV channels. Plus, there will be archive material on there that is not currently available, plus they will have original content. It will also give viewers more time to watch recent series as the i-Player is really a catch-up service. It is very easy to fall behind with series on there.
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Between them, the BBC and ITV own the rights to lots of shows, because they're theirs. There's many decades worth of material that can be remade and that's just stuff from the past, ranging from kids shows to costume dramas, let alone brand new stories.
As I see it, Britbox is the method that secures British "broadcasting" into the future and probably will keep ITV alive for a bit longer too as the service gets jointly funded by the Beeb and ITV with perhaps CH4 coming onboard too. And without digressing too far off the subject, I believe Britbox will eventually lead to the merger of ITV and CH4 and possibly even the BBC in the future, if the license fee is stopped.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
Thank you, Den. Out of those articles, only The Guardian carries an entirely negative view of the likelihood of success for Britbox. The others draw attention to the fact that Britbox is a bit late on the scene, although its only SVOD competitors in the UK so far are Netflix, Amazon and Starzplay.
The assumption made is that Britbox will not result in content being taken back from Netflix by the BBC, but I think that remains to be seen. Even if it isn't, there's still a wealth of content that will be available. The shows immediately available from the BBC i-Player and the new originals will be attractive, without a doubt. ITV should have a fair bit of content to add to it as well.
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Britbox doesn't need to compete with Netflix.
Netflix is becoming the first real global tv service with original shows for many different countries. Britbox will exist to purely serve the English speaking world or those interested in UK shows. It will never make foreign language shows like Netflix is doing.
And the assumption that the BBC won't pull their stuff off Netflix is wrong. Firstly, as part of the breakup of UKTV, the BBC's factual content will be exclusively licensed to Discovery's global streaming app for ten years when it launches. (Edit: The rights are for outside the UK.)
And secondly, why would the BBC keep all their other material on Netflix, when they can make money out of the stuff directly on their own commercial streaming service?