It’s a brave new world! As the battle for viewers rages on, long held and much cherished lines of demarcation between the UK’s top broadcast rivals are about to be blurred.
ITV has confirmed that it and the BBC have now signed an agreement to launch their joint online streaming service, BritBox, in the UK during the fourth quarter of this year.
A rival to the likes of Netflix and Amazon, BritBox – which has already launched in the US with 500,000 subscribers – will provide both recently broadcast shows and British box-sets. Shows including Gavin & Stacey and The Office are to be among those on the service, either at launch or once their licenses with other SVODs end.
The ad-free service will cost viewers £5.99 per month. In comparison, Netflix recently hiked its own prices by as much as 20%, and its most popular standard plan is now priced at £8.99 a month.
TMS12 view
As ITV and the BBC’s traditional revenue sources come under increasing fire, this move will be more than welcome in several quarters.
Short term issues
What will the take up of BritBox be?
What effect will BritBox have on linear TV viewing figures?
What lies ahead for the leading TV-players?
Long term outlook
While SVOD continues to build on a subscription revenues alone, linear TV’s Ad delivery model will remain unchanged. That is for as long as its audience – the bedrock of the Ad delivery model – remains reachable at scale.
Going forward, coverage of live events will become ever more important in the commercial equation concerning linear TV. That is until the SVOD giants begin to buy exclusive rights to these events and convert large audiences to the pay-per-view option.
