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BritBox
BritBox is a British over-the-top video on demand streaming service owned by BBC Studios which operates in seven countries across Australia, Europe, and North America. In addition to original programming, it offers British television series and films, featuring current and past series as well as films supplied by Britain's major terrestrial broadcasters the BBC and ITV (Channel 4 and Channel 5 programming was available on the UK service starting in 2020). BritBox is said to feature the biggest collection of British box sets available in one place, with additional original programming available from 2020.
BritBox was first launched in the United States on 7 March 2017, followed by a launch in Canada on 14 February 2018. A separately managed UK service was launched on 7 November 2019. From 2020, the service has since launched in Australia, South Africa, and in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, through local partnerships in these four countries. The service in the UK and the international services are operated differently, and host differing content, including BritBox UK's exclusive original content. There are content restrictions between each platform, leading some content to be available on one platform and unavailable on another.
BritBox provides new episodes to British soaps and dramas such as EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, within hours of their UK broadcast via BritBox's 'Now' feature to US and Canadian users, but also includes extensive archives of older programming, including Doctor Who classic series on the service. It reported a subscriber base of 250,000 within a year of launching in the US. In 2019, 650,000 subscribers were reported from the North American platform. In early 2020, the number of US and Canadian subscribers surpassed 1 million users, to around 1.2 million by August, and 1.5 million by October, following strong growth in the North American service due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 9 March 2021, it was reported that the UK service had surpassed 500,000 subscribers, meeting BritBox's UK target. Will Harrison, BritBox UK's managing director told members of the UK Broadcasting Press Guild that BritBox was "very happy" at how the service had performed since its November 2019 launch. By 1 July 2022, it had reached 2.6 million.
Though not officially described as its successor, BritBox has been likened[who?] to an earlier attempt by UK public service broadcasters (PSBs) (BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4) to create an online video-on-demand download service, codenamed "Project Kangaroo", in November 2007. This followed the launches of the broadcasters' own video-on-demand services.
On Wednesday, 4 February 2009, Project Kangaroo was blocked by the Competition Commission.
The commission stated that the case surrounding Kangaroo was about the control of valuable UK-originated TV content. "BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 together control the vast majority of this material, which puts them in a very strong position as wholesalers of TV content to restrict competition from other current and future providers of video-on-demand services to UK viewers," said Peter Freeman, the chairman of the Competition Commission, in its final report on Project Kangaroo. "We thought viewers would benefit from better video-on-demand [VoD] services if the parties – possibly in conjunction with other new and/or already established providers of VoD – competed with each other."
A Channel 4 spokesperson said at the time, "This is a disproportionate remedy and a missed opportunity in the further development of British broadcasting."
After the planned Project Kangaroo was blocked, the system's assets were sold to transmitter firm Arqiva and this led to the development of the service SeeSaw, which operated from February 2010 to October 2011, with content from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5, some of which (such as Doctor Who) now appears on BritBox.
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BritBox
BritBox is a British over-the-top video on demand streaming service owned by BBC Studios which operates in seven countries across Australia, Europe, and North America. In addition to original programming, it offers British television series and films, featuring current and past series as well as films supplied by Britain's major terrestrial broadcasters the BBC and ITV (Channel 4 and Channel 5 programming was available on the UK service starting in 2020). BritBox is said to feature the biggest collection of British box sets available in one place, with additional original programming available from 2020.
BritBox was first launched in the United States on 7 March 2017, followed by a launch in Canada on 14 February 2018. A separately managed UK service was launched on 7 November 2019. From 2020, the service has since launched in Australia, South Africa, and in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, through local partnerships in these four countries. The service in the UK and the international services are operated differently, and host differing content, including BritBox UK's exclusive original content. There are content restrictions between each platform, leading some content to be available on one platform and unavailable on another.
BritBox provides new episodes to British soaps and dramas such as EastEnders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, within hours of their UK broadcast via BritBox's 'Now' feature to US and Canadian users, but also includes extensive archives of older programming, including Doctor Who classic series on the service. It reported a subscriber base of 250,000 within a year of launching in the US. In 2019, 650,000 subscribers were reported from the North American platform. In early 2020, the number of US and Canadian subscribers surpassed 1 million users, to around 1.2 million by August, and 1.5 million by October, following strong growth in the North American service due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 9 March 2021, it was reported that the UK service had surpassed 500,000 subscribers, meeting BritBox's UK target. Will Harrison, BritBox UK's managing director told members of the UK Broadcasting Press Guild that BritBox was "very happy" at how the service had performed since its November 2019 launch. By 1 July 2022, it had reached 2.6 million.
Though not officially described as its successor, BritBox has been likened[who?] to an earlier attempt by UK public service broadcasters (PSBs) (BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4) to create an online video-on-demand download service, codenamed "Project Kangaroo", in November 2007. This followed the launches of the broadcasters' own video-on-demand services.
On Wednesday, 4 February 2009, Project Kangaroo was blocked by the Competition Commission.
The commission stated that the case surrounding Kangaroo was about the control of valuable UK-originated TV content. "BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 together control the vast majority of this material, which puts them in a very strong position as wholesalers of TV content to restrict competition from other current and future providers of video-on-demand services to UK viewers," said Peter Freeman, the chairman of the Competition Commission, in its final report on Project Kangaroo. "We thought viewers would benefit from better video-on-demand [VoD] services if the parties – possibly in conjunction with other new and/or already established providers of VoD – competed with each other."
A Channel 4 spokesperson said at the time, "This is a disproportionate remedy and a missed opportunity in the further development of British broadcasting."
After the planned Project Kangaroo was blocked, the system's assets were sold to transmitter firm Arqiva and this led to the development of the service SeeSaw, which operated from February 2010 to October 2011, with content from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5, some of which (such as Doctor Who) now appears on BritBox.
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