Britbox prepares for launch – but it’s too little, too late

Britbox, the streaming service backed by most of the UK’s public service broadcasters (PSBs), including BBC, Channel 5 and ITV, has launched in beta. The service will receive £65 million (net) in investment in its first two years and will arrive armed with exclusive UK shows, along with a subset of PSB programming. However, its competitors have a global, albeit US-dominated, content library backed by billions of dollars in annual spending. And an increasing share of their libraries includes UK content. We consider how pricing, exclusivity issues and a lack of original content, among other factors, are hindering the chances of Britbox’s success and examine how the service could impact media industry participants more broadly, ahead of its full launch.