BritBox isn't a Netflix killer; that's Mickey Mouse's job!
- Summary:
- BritBox will supposedly be The BBC and ITV's way of combating Netflix. Or will it?
Whichever view you subscribe to, the UK’s two biggest national broadcasters have confirmed that they’re in the closing stages of agreeing to launch a joint-venture which will go by the name of BritBox.
Assuming all goes to plan, the new service will deliver, according to the official announcement, “an original streaming service providing an unrivalled collection of British boxsets and original series, on demand, all in one place’ and will include ‘the biggest collection of British content available on any streaming service” and “Brand new commissions for British production companies specifically created for BritBox”.
BBC Director-General, Tony Hall, says;
I am delighted that the BBC and ITV are working together on something truly special - BritBox, a new streaming service delivering the best home-grown content to the public who love it best. The service will have everything from old favourites to recent shows and brand new commissions. It’s an exciting time for the viewing public.
Well, maybe, although that remains to be seen. The BBC’s last dalliance with online boxsets was the ill-fated BBC Store, the corporation’s attempt to take on iTunes. This time around it’s Netflix that’s in the target sights. The broadcasters cite data from BARB to the effect that more than 12 million households in the UK subscribe to at least one on demand streaming service.
ITV goes a step further and claims that 43% of homes are interested in signing up to a streaming service that is made up of British content, a percentage that apparently rises to over 50% in households that currently have a Netflix subscription.
Challenges
There are different challenges facing the BBC and ITV here. For non-UK readers, while the latter is funded by advertising, the former is paid for by a state-imposed levy, set to rise to £154.50 from 1 April. That licence fee has become a subject of increasing controversy over the years as cable, satellite and now online broadcast services have become mainstream.
For the BBC, an immediate criticism that will be aimed at the new service will be the question of why viewers should pay again via a subscription for content that has already been paid for via the licence fee. That’s an argument that can be dismissed pretty easily, but it will add more pressure to the ‘scrap the licence fee’ argument.
There’s also the question of how BritBox will impact on the BBC’s genuine online success story, iPlayer. As well as being a catch-up service, iPlayer has become a live broadcast platform, most notably with the move of BBC3 to become an online-only channel with its own specially-commissioned content. If BritBox is also to deliver its own content, how will this work in practice?
For ITV the challenge is how to reduce its reliance on advertising revenue in an increasingly competitive market. A subscription service is an obvious response. The company turned in a four percent drop in underlying earnings to £810 million for 2018 and expects to see total advertising drop by as much as 17% year-on-year by next month. There’s only so much you can blame Brexit on here...
Reaction to the planned new service has been mixed. UK tech industry trade association techUK seems keen, with Craig Melson, Programme Manager, Digital Devices and Consumer Electronics, commenting;
There’s been a clear shift towards streaming services, so attempts to use regulation to load the dice against online platforms is only detrimental to the consumer. The best way to compete with these global platforms is to innovate and offer services in a way the consumer wants, not to try and restrict access to content.
It’s unclear as to whether other broadcasters like Channel 4, Channel 5 and UKTV will sign up, but a single platform to get all the best British content regardless of channel will be a strong proposition indeed. It should also be a good boost too for those in the business of selling devices. The BBC and ITV haven’t set out a distribution strategy or whether it will be included in smart-TVs/set-top boxes, but this would be the logical thing to do. Overall this is a very exciting development.
On the other hand, it remains to be seen how regulator Ofcom will formally respond. There’s form here. Nearly a decade ago, regulators blocked Project Kangaroo, a planned streaming service from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, on the grounds that it would restrict competition. A lot has changed since then of course, but as recently as last year, Ofcom said of the BBC’s ambitions for iPlayer that;
We are also mindful that when the BBC wishes to make changes, this could significantly affect competition in the wider UK media market. While the BBC faces increasing competition from the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, in the UK it remains a large organisation with a unique funding mechanism. This allows it to offer content to UK audiences, free of charge and free from advertising, in a way that others cannot. Changes it makes will have positive effects: the BBC may enhance public value and may encourage competition by offering more choice, stimulating demand, or promoting innovation, which benefits UK audiences. However, some changes the BBC proposes may also harm competition and UK broadcasters; for example, by crowding out investment in UK content and services from other companies, which could ultimately reduce choice for viewers and listeners.
That suggests that nothing should be taken for granted here.
My take
This announcement has been a long time coming - as we noted back in January 2017, the BBC has a bad case of Netflix envy, although it’s important to note that the compliment is returned by Netflix. The failure of the BBC Store shouldn’t lead to any suspicion that the back-catalog of content in both the BBC and ITV archives doesn’t have enormous value. It’s a question of how that gets out to the consumer and via what platform. Would viewers catch up with Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Who on iPlayer, but have to pay up to BritBox for William Hartnell?
At present, the likes of Netflix and Amazon pick up BBC content. Presumably that would have to change, much as Disney has taken back its toys from Netflix to service its own streaming ambitions. That in turn begs the question of how easy it would then be for the BBC to enter into joint productions with Netflix, such as the recent award-winning A Very English Scandal.
And mention of Disney reminds us that whatever the ‘Netflix killer’ headlines the BritBox announcement generated, it won’t be Auntie who brings Netflix to its knees; that job’s been assigned to Mickey Mouse.