BritBox is a streaming service available in the United States for over two years and has over 600,000 subscribers. Its unique selling point in the United States is clear: if you are a fan of British television, you will find a lot on Britbox. The service was finally launched in the UK, with a 30-day free trial offer.
The service is a joint venture between ITV and the BBC, with their shows making up the majority of the product line launched (with Channel 5), as well as future content from Channel 4 and Comedy Central UK.
At present though, your USP really doesn't make sense in the UK unless you have a particular affinity for classic ITV drama. Given the excellent BBC content already on Netflix UK or Beeb's iPlayer streaming service, the BritBox range doesn't seem immediately exciting compared to its competitors.
To take just one example out of dozens of shows, you can watch the phenomenal anthology show Inside No. 9 on BritBox, or just watch it on iPlayer for free. Likewise, while the BritBox library seems pretty comprehensive in regards to British classics like Blackadder, Downton Abbey, Prime Suspect, and Inspector Morse, it doesn't contain everything we expected to see now. You'll currently find 11 Doctor Who series on iPlayer for free, but none on BritBox, though, at Christmas time, more than 600 pre-1989 Doctor Who episodes join the lineup.
Paying for BBC broadcasts, meanwhile, is already a contentious issue for some. We won't go into the licensing fee policy here - you think the BBC is worth it or it doesn't, or you fall somewhere in between. But paying an additional € 6 to access new BBC content seems odd when the BBC itself promised last month to keep the new content on the service for a year instead of 30 days as before.
A selection of classic shows you look forward to seeing on BritBox is currently available for free on iPlayer - full sets including Outnumbered, Gavin and Stacey, Fleabag, Life on Mars, Luther, and more. Of course, BritBox offers a wider range of older older shows, but it doesn't have the popular Fleabag or Luther yet; then it is not as complete as possible.
What about the original content?
(Image credit: ITV)
As for original programming, a full series of shows will come later, it seems, for BritBox, but for now, the service claims older exclusive shows and imports on its platform. Broadchurch, the popular ITV drama, is billed as a "BritBox exclusive," for example, and is a similar deal with the BBC comedy Him & Her. It's hard to be overly excited about the shows you've already seen moving behind another € 6 payment schedule.
More interesting is the exclusive import Lambs of God, an Australian drama about nuns living on a distant island, starring Ann Dowd of The Leftovers. It also has some exclusive Midsomer Murders episodes to explore, which clearly gives the impression that BritBox is aimed at older viewers.
What about the movies?
(Image credit: ITV)
Cinema is one area where BritBox could possibly find a way to distinguish itself from other streamers, even if the excellent MUBI and BFI Player services already trade a bit on British classics. The BritBox offering is currently focused on much older films such as The Red Shoes, The Boys From Brazil and, among others, a series of Carry On films. But in 2020, films from Film4's archive will start to appear and the service could start to have great potential.
Again, however, the free options available in the UK are quite effective in providing this kind of thing. You can watch Sexy Beast and a host of other great British movies on All4, while iPlayer isn't left out either, offering a mix of modern classics and vintage favorites, and not just UK ones. Unless these discs really become unmatched by British cinema, this still doesn't seem like a reason to subscribe.
This is not the most exciting service right now.
That's what we can't shake with BritBox at launch. It's like you're paying € 6 to access a large amount of content that you get with another subscription, or that ITV3 could capture. There isn't enough of a difference between this service and existing streaming services to make it really exciting right now, although it may change over time.
Older UK viewers may consider this archive to be a large live archive. And ITV's Reemah Sakaan is correct in saying that older shows sparked a bitter war in America, suggesting that not all of them require expensive large originals. "The new battlefield, quite frequently in streaming, is that of Friends, who is 20 years old and is the best actor," he told BBC Radio 4.
It is true that no one owns or markets this part of UK television streaming, but content that fits that description has always been easy to find, such as iPlayer and All4, Netflix and Amazon.
As the archives of British television become more comprehensive, the value of BritBox could increase. However, it might have been more logical for BritBox broadcasters to have waited a bit longer and launched the service with a great original drama to compete with The Crown. to show that it meant business. Its release without great originals offers a similar result compared to what you currently get with other streamers, and with the surprising global launch of Disney Plus over two years, the competition will only intensify.
BritBox certainly has a good viewing angle and isn't really trying to be the first streaming service in your life. There is potential, and we look forward to seeing how much the library is growing, and if the service starts to seem worth € 6 a month.