back to article BBC surrenders 'linear' exclusivity to compete with binge-watch Netflix

The BBC is abandoning linear exclusivity as it goes for broke to make the iPlayer a global Netflix rival. The corporation says it will throw entire series on to the on-demand streaming service before the first episode in a series is even broadcast on terrestrial TV. Director-General Tony Hall will call for the BBC to "reinvent …

    1. phuzz Silver badge

      BBC Worldwide is very much a commercial company.

      They also own half of the UKTV channels (ie UKTV Gold, Dave etc), and, well, lots of other things.

      This is the part of the BBC that wants to compete with Netflix et al, because outside of the UK they are direct competitors.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        i worked at Worldwide for nearly two years, and when i was there (admittedly over ten years ago) it was nothing like a commercial company. People were promoted based on how long they'd been there, if they were in the right union, not because of abilities; management decisions were taken on the basis of ensuring Worldwide revenues/activities could not be criticised by the print media or politicians, not what was in the interests of the company. Etc. etc. etc.

      2. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

        "BBC Worldwide is very much a commercial company.

        They also own half of the UKTV channels (ie UKTV Gold, Dave etc), and, well, lots of other things."

        Fine. They certainly do not need my licence money.

        I will instruct my wife to finally stop paying, as she always insist on doing.

        1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

          You can stop thumbing me down, as my wife never listens to my "instructions" anyway!

    2. Wiltshire

      Why does the BBC *NEED* to compete against Netflix and Amazon?

      Because, outside the UK walled garden, the BBC *is* a commercial company

      i.e. the rest of the world.

    3. MOV r0,r0

      And yet it's been competing, wrongly, with ITV since 1955 and you hadn't noticed?

      The rot set in at the BBC a very long time ago.

    4. Hollerithevo

      Yes, I am an ex-BBCer

      I used to watch it and check its news constantly. Then it became more bitty, popular-culture, sound-bite and video friendly with less or hard to access in-depth stuff. It's been a long, withdrawing sea of quality, and one day I thought 'I'm done'. My favorite BBC radio channel is increasingly dumbed-down, and I now go online for Klara Kontinuo or similar radio stations. I suppose they can only convince their paymasters by showing they have oodles of viewers and that they are addressing all audiences from the zoned-out teen on up, but listening to Radio 3 celebrating 70 years and hearing what was on offer 30 or 40 years ago and what's on now, I could do nothing but sigh.

      1. John Arthur

        Re: Yes, I am an ex-BBCer

        Could not agree more. And if the 70 years bit was not enough we have been treated to non-stop Schoenberg for a week now on R3.

        Have an upvote for letting me know about Klara Kontinuo which I am listening to now as I pen this...

    5. e^iπ+1=0

      "I used to admire the BBC. It was something that I was glad existed. I respected it. This started to change around 2005/6 for me."

      Really?

      I think 70s - 80s is more realistic. Did Jim fix it?

  1. Tony Paulazzo

    BBC £12 a month (license fee)

    Netflix £6 a month

    They still lose, and if they sell their service cheaper to the rest of the world they stand to lose even more British viewers.

    1. Ol'Peculier

      BBC:

      All the channels, including several for the little ones & News 24

      Radio, national, and regional

      World Service & international rolling news TV channel

      One of the best UK websites available

      iPlayer

      Netflix:

      Erm... TV & films.

      1. graeme leggett Silver badge

        "TV and Films"

        some of which are BBC produced TV from years ago.

    2. HmmmYes

      Sadly Netflix gets my money.

      I just dont watch enough BBC telly to make the license fee worth my while.

      I watch more Ch5 than all the BBC channels.

      The kids watch youtube or play on computers.

      The only people I know who watch much BBC are my parents. They get a free TV license.

      The BBC really has to put its finger out and decide what its going to do.

      Id guess its only got around 5 years left.

      1. The First Dave

        If you are watching Ch.5 the you are a moron, and in any case technically still need to pay the licence fee.

        1. HmmmYes

          I could be watching Ch5 on demand!

          The fact is Im starting to watch less + less telly.

          If you up the quality of the stuff you watch then you tend not to bother the crap stuff.

          Sadly, I still am paying the license. More habit than anything else.

          If the aerial fell off my house then Id not replace and change to all online.

        2. HmmmYes

          I should add that Ch5 screened Gotham. Thats the only boardcast dframa Ive watchedo nterristial telly.

          Its great. I make the BBC look like Pravda.

      2. Jess

        Re: Netflix gets my money

        And my household's too.

        No TV licence. No iPlayer app installed. No Live streaming.

        Netflix, ITVPlayer, 4oD (or whatever the current brand is, some very good stuff on there - Humans) My5 (There's usually one series worth following), plus flixster for UV.

  2. Known Hero

    If they want to do well

    Please for the love of god,

    A: Make your service accessible to as many devices as possible.

    B: Don't try to control what we watch

    C: Don't try to be too clever about it we don't need AI selections based off what my neighbours watch, if you really want that, that can all come later when the service is already working and making you money.

    1. MJI Silver badge

      Re: If they want to do well

      Tell ITV that

      They are terrible

    2. ZillaOfManilla

      Re: If they want to do well

      "A: Make your service accessible to as many devices as possible"

      Whilst they are at it, please make it work on the devices you have already made it accessible on. I use TiVo and its a dog, programmes load but then start buffering and never catch up. I end up switchign to my wifi FireTV stick to watch iPlayer then stay there to watch whatever Amazon are throwing away for free.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The way things are going

    Well done BBC, this is the right move.

    Looking in next couple years there will not be much difference between BBC/Netflix & Amazon, they will each be producing their own content that will be only accessible on there platform.

    But what's going to happen to us, do we need to sign up to each platform to get access to what we want to watch?? ie House of Cards & Vikings being two examples.

    Going to get expensive quickly. (Not even factoring in Sky here)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The way things are going

      "But what's going to happen to us, do we need to sign up to each platform to get access to what we want to watch?"

      That's life for you. A bitch, innit?

    2. Floydian Slip
      Coat

      Re: The way things are going

      Ah but with #Brexit and wonderful trade deals we're going to become so much wealthier.

      Then AI kicks in and we'll all be paid a Universal Income by the Govt. and have so much free time to deal with that we'll need Amazon, Netflix, BBC, ITV *insert new players here* etc to stop us all going round-the-bend and killing ourselves.

  4. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

    Going global

    make the iPlayer a global Netflix rival.

    I don't see how iPlayer could rival anything on a *global* level. Every time I've tried to access it from overseas I get a message saying "bah - your IP address is registered to Johnnie Foreigner - be off with you"...or words to that effect. (if I know I'm going to be going overseas, I try to remember to download some content at home before I go).

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pass the salt

    We were also told the entire archive was going online as part of the digital media initiative, but we didn't get that and instead got a £100,000,000 bill for the overall failure of the project. As such any claim related to iPlayer I will take with a pinch of salt.

  6. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Trollface

    "Enders Analysis"?

    Do they meet in the Queen Vic'?

  7. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Why?

    UK channels broadcast as well as stream, so they will probably never have as many catch-up/on demand users in the UK as a streaming-only service.

    People are still creatures of habit and have to fit TV around other things, most are probably not going to binge an entire series in a weekend as they probably won't have the time.

    Things like news or soaps that run all year like East-bloody-Enders can't be dumped onto iPlayer.

    Does this include Christmas specials? Will we be watching them in October?

    If you dump everything onto iPlayer, when do you take it off? Or is this a way of turning the BBC into a subscription service?

    Can I think of any more questions?

  8. IanCa

    make them ALL available AFTER broadcast as well - FOREVER

    they can make things so much more usable by catering for the exact opposite:

    example: a 10 part series the wife and I watch broadcast in spring-summer 2016. it was on series record on our youview box. for various reasons didn't watch it until recently, at which point noticed 2 episodes missing (youview box was powered off due to being on holiday). went to iplayer to try to watch them - expired, no longer on iplayer. so now in order to watch those episodes I will have to go somewhere dubious to get access to them. why should I need to do that... ?

    for in another example, there are numerous series that were on 10's of years ago before digital recorder boxes became commonplace (you name it, prize for the most amusing) that many of us might like to watch again. maybe we have them on VHS in the attic but the VCR long since died!

    the disk and network space clearly must exists in the big bad-ass BBC datacentre to make them available to me. (if it doesn't, I'll build it for them).

    this is the long tail of the distribution, watching the content months/years after original transmission that has very little impact on load but a massive impact on user experience / convenience factor.

    Iplayer should simply make available everything the BBC has broadcast, ever, forever.

    1. codejunky Silver badge

      Re: make them ALL available AFTER broadcast as well - FOREVER

      "Iplayer should simply make available everything the BBC has broadcast, ever, forever."

      At least with that plan they can see what people like and maybe produce stuff that people want to watch/listen to. I have given up the the tv tax, it wasnt worth paying the BBC so I can pay for sky for interesting shows. Now I just buy dvd's of anything that looks interesting and remove the adverts. It is really boring to watch normal TV any more as even the BBC puts on adverts between its shows to tell me of its shows. I dont care, I want to watch the show I put on.

      I hear they tried to remake old successful shows but it didnt sound like they were popular. Yet the originals are.

    2. graeme leggett Silver badge

      Re: make them ALL available AFTER broadcast as well - FOREVER

      "Iplayer should simply make available everything the BBC has broadcast, ever, forever"

      Presumes the BBC had the rights to do unlimited showings in the first place, and that rights didn't revert to writers, production companies etc.

      Also look up repeat fees and residuals as payments that might (they may have resolved the issue recently) have to be paid out for showings.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: make them ALL available AFTER broadcast as well - FOREVER

        The BBC TV "Timewatch" series had an interesting documentary several years ago called "Time Flies". It was a location reunion of some of the staff and actors for Peter Brooks's 1963 "Lord of the Flies" film some 40 years afterwards.

        AFAIK it has only been shown the once. New DVD releases of the 1963 film have apparently tried to licence the documentary as an "extra" with the support of its original makers - but the BBC price was too high. So presumably it just sits in the BBC archives.

        1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

          Re: make them ALL available AFTER broadcast as well - FOREVER

          It's probably not the BBC at all. A lot of the stations' current output, especially in documentary, is commissioned from independent production companies. Rights to these films revert to those production companies after a certain number of exhibitions or after a certain time has elapsed.

          This allows the Beeb to commission more programming, because each programme is cheaper to rent from a production company than to buy (make) itself.

          The downside is that sometimes the production company can sell the programme exclusively to another owner after the BBC's use of it expires, which makes it near-impossible for the BBC or anyone else to re-acquire it, despite the public thinking that because it's on the BBC, it was made by the BBC.

    3. strum

      Re: make them ALL available AFTER broadcast as well - FOREVER

      >Iplayer should simply make available everything the BBC has broadcast, ever, forever.

      Nice idea - but much of the Beeb's production was paid for on the basis of a very limited number of broadcasts (and underpaid, on that basis). Having to renegotiate every contract on every episode of every title - that would cost a fortune.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well done Ofcom

    Brilliant idea forcing every little (globally speaking) local company to create their own streaming platform. Whoever came up with that one should be forced to watch the clunky low-res ITV Player for a few hours a day, followed by playing a few rounds of will-Channel 4's-player-actually-restart-the-programme-after-the-ad-break. Sky et all must have been pissing themselves.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: Well done Ofcom

      I don't understand that. Surely all OFCOM needed to do was to mandate that the platform was open for any broadcaster to use?

      What next? Will OFCOM crack down on all the TV companies using the same RF transmission standards?

    2. GruntyMcPugh Silver badge

      Re: Well done Ofcom

      Ah, so it's not just me,... I had some funnies catching up on 'Humans', it sometimes hung at an advert break, or if I paused it, went to bed, and tried to resume it next day, it would restart at some point I'd already watched, not where I paused.

    3. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Well done Ofcom

      I cannot use ITV player at all, STV one worked until recently as long as you deleted a few web pag elements.

      Anyway BBC and C4 work on both consoles, shITV abandoned them. So anything the PVR fails to record gets missed or I torrent it. (For my wife BTW)

      Just remember this online TV providers, your system MUST be easier to use than a bittorrent client.

      I do not even bother checking the schedule with C5 as they do not want me as a viewer.

      I worked out 99% of my viewing is from the following

      BBC1 HD Freesat

      BBC4 HD Freesat

      BBC2 HD Freesat

      C4 SD Freesat

      Film 4 SD Freesat

      BBC News24 Freeview

      Oh and Amazon Prime via PS4

      BBC Iplayer is OK but the quality is a bit pants

  10. tiggity Silver badge

    A few iPlayer improvement suggestions

    Methods to increase iPlayer use.

    Off the top of my head....

    Stop using Flash (I should not have to make an effort to hack my useragent string just to prevent you trying to foist a top malware vector on me)

    Make it easier to search for content?

    Add far more classic back catalogue content (I may as well watch original 70s comedy than Mrs. Browns Boys which is just all the ancient gags in drag )

    Stop expiring content after a short time as I'm sick of "this content is no longer available" messages (TV watching is low on my list of priorities, more stuff I would like to watch than I actually get time to watch, so often hit by this "timeout" scenario when I finally try to catchup on stuff)

    Sort out a method for licence payers to use iPlayer overseas without jumping through VPN / proxying hoops.

    Implementing cross device bookmark functionality (this would also require some form of account, which could be tied to TV licence & get rid of all the dross do you have a licence questions & allow access from abroad) - it would be nice to resume "TV episode" playback on my phone on train commute in they morning from point I had reached on PC the night before

    1. viscount

      Re: A few iPlayer improvement suggestions

      "cross device bookmark functionality"

      It's already there when you login, and works very well.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A few iPlayer improvement suggestions

      "Off the top of my head...."

      Add to which - if a programme is shown on BBC terrestrial TV then it should also be available on the simultaneous iPlayer live stream.

      Several times over Xmas a film slot on the iPlayer live stream said "Sorry - you can only watch this programme on your TV".

      It wouldn't be a problem if I could get a decent signal on terrestrial TV since they switched off the analogue service.

  11. andy 103

    Content is king

    There's all these articles about TV services - Netflix, iPlayer, Prime etc, and they all seem to focus on the delivery of content... but never the content itself.

    Here's my issue with the BBC - they produce content which is, at best, mediocre.

    Netflix don't really produce anything, but they buy decent content. And they're winning with it, up to this point.

    A novel idea may be to get people together who have good ideas for shows/programmes, that are entertaining, and that people actually like. How do you know they like things which haven't yet been produced? Well, that's something else which the platform could seek to help out with.

    The point being, the technology and delivery are really a moot point, if the content is crap.

    It's like people going on about 4k TV's - totally useless unless you've got something good to put on that screen IMO.

    1. IanRS

      Re: Content is king

      A few years ago I replaced my TV with a fish tank. The content is now far more watchable.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Content is king

        "A few years ago I replaced my TV with a fish tank. The content is now far more watchable."

        Obligatory XKCD

    2. jason 7

      Re: Content is king

      Only thing we've enjoyed/watched BBC wise for the past 6 months has been Fleabag. That's just under 3 hours of TV for 6 months of License fee.

      When we settle down in the evening the Freeview box rarely gets switched on, its straight to the FireTV box to see what's on Netflix.

      1. GruntyMcPugh Silver badge

        Re: Content is king

        What's on Netflix? Like 'The IT Crowd', 'Dr Who', 'Peaky Blinders', 'The Office', the original 'House of Cards', 'Broadchurch', 'Call the Midwife', 'Sherlock', 'Luther', 'The Fall',....

        ... all produced by the BBC originally,......

        1. Soruk

          Re: Content is king

          The IT Crowd was Channel 4.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Content is king

      The content is certainly King with Netflix, by that I mean "The Crown", fabulous, a fair 'warts and all' portrail of the Royals, the long monologues over images were the best bits.

      Loved it, just the sheer exuberance of the sets. Breathtaking.

      Series like Netflix's "The Crown" are blurring the lines between the BBC and Netflix. You feel like you should be watching the BBC, when you are in fact watching a commercial channel.

      Now, the celebrity dross seems to be on the BBC, the self referencial back slapping self promotion on the BBC has become so annoying. The One Show (and it's presenting style) being the epitome / embodiment of such dross. To watch Paul Merton lower hiimself to this, is just so depressing.

      Graham Norton show is just one big advert/film flunk juncket, rarely are the guests not picked from the usual rabble of 50 Celebrities, its so predicable/boring 'safe'.

      So watching Netflix's "The Crown", takes me back to what I sort of expect the BBC to make, but sadly doesn't and seems incapable of producing such content now.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Content is king

        For every The Crown on Netflix there are loads of things which are worse that the now supposedly uniformly terrible BBC. And if it matters to you, children's TV on Netflix is just a wasteland too.

      2. strum

        Re: Content is king

        >seems incapable of producing such content now.

        Wolf Hall, Happy Valley, Planet Earth II, Sherlock - yeah, really mediocre (and those are just the ones I remember, off the top of my head).

        Netflix would need to come up with a 'Crown' every week for 50 years to catch up with the BBC.

        1. MJI Silver badge

          Re: Content is king

          Aghhh

          I forgot Planet Earth 2

          BBR Bristol and David Attenborough

          Why other nature documentries fail in the UK

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