BBC / ITV To Launch New Streaming Rival

steve_c

steve_c

steve_c

Associate
Joined
3 Jan 2005
Posts
1,736
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47383559

"Research with the British public shows that there is a real appetite for a new British streaming service - in addition to their current subscriptions," he said.

Dame Carolyn told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that 43% of all homes which use the Internet are interested in a subscription to BritBox. For homes which already subscribe to Netflix, she said that increased to half of all homes.
Click to expand...

Not too sure what to think of this, really. Is there really an appetite for yet another streaming service in this country?

I'm a firm believer that this kind of thing will make people go back to getting their content via more questionable means.

Interesting to see the two work together I suppose...
 
It’s just a way for them to try and pilfer everyone’s money via license fees, only they need an actual service to do it with.

With how sad the BBC’s programming (bar perhaps Attenborough’s things) has become, I hope they fail. Add the bbc to general taxation or make them fund it themselves, cause I definitely not be paying for it by choice unless is drastically ups it’s game.
 
Last edited:
billysielu said:
I'm so sick of the licence fee. If they want to replace it with this, fine. If they want to do this on top of the license fee, not fine.
Click to expand...

Which is why I no longer have a TV licence. We have poor reception anyway but I don't care about watching things live so just do everything on catch up. Granted you need a licence to use BBC's catch up service but there's never anything on there I'm bothered about anyway.
 
Dame Carolyn told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme that 43% of all homes which use the Internet are interested in a subscription to BritBox.
Click to expand...

Where on earth did he get that statistic from when nobody till today even knew about it?
 
I like some of the catch up service apps that are around.

But am I right in thinking that ITV doesn't have a proper catch up app like the others? I know I've got access to the BBC's Iplayer, C4/E4 and C5 apps.

If ITV doesn't have a catch up app then I can understand them trying to get in on the action. Though I think them wanting money for it is pushing it, especially when £5 or £6 is being the rumoured price.

I suspect the BBC are joining it to test the waters to see if people are willing to pay for the service and then in the future they would remove the license fee and go to this subscription model to fund them.

Though I can see the motives for both channels I think it will fail i.e. not enough people subscribing.
 
steve_c said:
I'm a firm believer that this kind of thing will make people go back to getting their content via more questionable means.
Click to expand...

I thought the exact same thing when i read that article this morning.

If BBC/ITV want to make a bit of revenue then sell the licenses for their content to the big players Netflix/Amazon for a decent fee.

If someone's already paying £7 for Netflix, £6 for Amazon, £5 for Disney, and then topping it off with £5 for this Britbox on top of paying for a licence fee as well as Sky/Virgin if you don't want/can't get freeview. It can suddenly get very expensive for on-demand services, and will lead to people saying i'm already paying £40 a month for streaming services and i only want to watch one show on XYZ service.
 
BowdonUK said:
I like some of the catch up service apps that are around.

But am I right in thinking that ITV doesn't have a proper catch up app like the others? I know I've got access to the BBC's Iplayer, C4/E4 and C5 apps.

If ITV doesn't have a catch up app then I can understand them trying to get in on the action. Though I think them wanting money for it is pushing it, especially when £5 or £6 is being the rumoured price.

I suspect the BBC are joining it to test the waters to see if people are willing to pay for the service and then in the future they would remove the license fee and go to this subscription model to fund them.

Though I can see the motives for both channels I think it will fail i.e. not enough people subscribing.
Click to expand...

ITV has ITV hub, but iirc they only keep shows on there for 30 days, whereas some of the other on-demand channels (BBC/Channel 4) have been known to keep some of their content on there for a very long time. - Channel 4 for example still has The Inbetweeners last time i checked, and that was aired like 10+ years ago.
 
A lot of BBC content is already on platforms like Netflix. I guess they want to move that content from Netflix and onto their own subscription model, that they can use internationally. There might not be much appetite for it in the UK but I bet there's a massive international market for it.
 
Honestly, if they got Channel 4 on board, I wouldn't mind paying £5 a month. The adverts and quality on Channel 4 on demand service are awful (it still uses Flash) and I like Channel 4.
 
They have enough content to make it viable. Presumably Netflix et al don’t pay what BBC/ITV think it’s worth. They’ve already had this in North America so they’re probably confident on their numbers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom