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 …

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    1. Rob D.

      Re: Content is king

      Whether the content is mediocre or not is generally subjective. I appreciate the BBC news coverage (yes, warts and all) and series like Happy Valley or The Night Manager, but I also think Eastenders is grungy, maudlin crap, so popular opinion isn't going to answer that question satisfactorily.

      Content is king though - with respect to the BBC, the importance is perhaps less its subjective mediocrity, and more about the question of ownership.

      Whether the license fee goes up or down by a few percentage points over time or is replaced with some other direct funding (risking the problems highlighted elsewhere), it is now more lucrative for creative producers of good content to do so as independent companies and then sell it to the highest bidder, BBC or not.

      By gradual attrition, this will pull remaining or home-grown talent out of the BBC and in to the commercial world. Hence the need eventually for the BBC to compete more rather than less. I prefer some of the BBC differentiation to be possible because of the license-fee funding model, but would sadly concede that there is only one direction of travel.

    2. MOV r0,r0

      Re: Content is king

      To comprehend the BBC is it necessary to understand that it is a make-work scheme and pension fund for metropolitan liberal-consensus hot-housed Oxbridge thirds. The two-and-a-half telly channels and some radio is just a side-line.

      If we took the whole four thousand seven hundred million pounds the BBC gets annually and used it solely to commission content, we would truly have a world class pro-UK cultural resource.

      Virtual BBC FTW!

    3. Bert 1
      Unhappy

      Re: Content is king

      I signed up for Netflix over Christmas to watch films.

      I have trawled through the list of available films.

      There are ONLY half a dozen I will watch, two of which I have seen. I am still buying latest releases from Virgin :-( Oh, and FB Junior is working his way through The Clone Wars, saving about £60 on a box set.

      So it's not all bad, but on an ongoing basis I can't see any more films I want to watch. I might watch Westworld, and I will return for GoT, but maybe I am not the target market for it. I don't like American drama that never ends, but merely gets cancelled. Please give me a proper story with a proper end. Like 24. I enjoyed that.

      I have also just signed up to Amazon Prime, in order to watch the Grand Tour.

      I have again trawled through the films on there. Nothing. TV series: Lucifer, Constantine and Ripper Street (which I expect will be on BBC at some point). The next day prime delivery is useful, but it appears to not be available for a huge part of the stuff available, rendering it frustrating. I've tried the "no rush" delivery a couple of times, but can't work out how to spend the credit on anything I actually want.

      The delivery mechanism isn't great either. It took me an afternoon to figure out how to watch Amazon through any of the smart devices I could plug into the TV. The ones that didn't work: Samsung smart DVD; Virgin tivo box; Ubuntu laptop; Android phone chrome cast. I have had to plug in a Windows 7 laptop.

      It's not that it confuses me, it just that the lack of elegance annoys me.

      1. David Nash Silver badge

        Re: Content is king

        @Bert 1

        The best way to watch Amazon is throught the Amazon stick. They are pretty low cost and work very well in my experience. It's also the best way I've found to watch iPlayer, although there are sometimes problems with sound synchronisation with the video.

        Some of Amazon's original content is good, I'm going off TG, I mean GT though. Too much of a "performance".

        1. Bert 1

          Re: Content is king

          @ David Nash

          Thanks for your suggestion. I am rapidly coming to that conclusion - that it is the only way to watch it on a TV.

          I then start looking at the FireTV, so I can get a cable connection, and the price increases markedly.

          Plus it's yet another box, and I already have 4!.

          Plus it is definitely inelegant to have that number of boxes. :-(

      2. MJI Silver badge

        Re: Content is king - Amazon Prime

        I found it VERY easy to use and set up.

        I trialed a few days before Grand Tour.

        Literally went down menu to Amazon placeholder, X it installed, I opened up, entered log in details, watched a free sample programme in HD, DD5.2 and NO LOGOS.

        Back to PC, paid Amazon £59, back to PS4, searched everything, following day watched Man In High Castle. Then just after it finished, oh look The Grand Tour was up.

        I did hold back on joining until TGT even though I have wanted to watch TMITHC for a while.

        It is easy to use.

        On Thursdays one minute I can be bashing Cabal with Gjallarhorns and the next be watching Clarkson Hammond and May.

        I am impressed with Amazon Prime and there is enough content for a programme a night.

        1. Jon Jones 73

          Re: Content is king - Amazon Prime

          Wow. It's supposed to be easy to use. Still doesn't work with Firefox though.

    4. Jon Jones 73

      Re: Content is king

      "Netflix don't really produce anything" Apart from the close to 200 original Netflix produced series (126 in 2016 alone), and close to a hundred more 'one offs' and collaborations with other producers.

      As for the BBC's content, of course opinion is subjective but the viewing figures suggest not everyone agrees with you.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Content is king

      "How do you know they like things which haven't yet been produced?" so let the iPlayer viewer choose the next series to be commissioned? A bit like Amazon with their screeners of new shows? I think that would work, although the new shows would probably me more skewed towards a certain demographic due to who wold be using iPlayer over traditional TV linear TV

    6. MJI Silver badge

      Re: Content is king

      There is still some decent stuff, Sherlock is worth a watch, I enjoyed a James May reassembly programme last night, then watched the model railway documentry afterwards

  1. Dr Wadd

    Don't forget radio

    I really regret the fact that the BBC decided to split radio and television in to two distinct entities within iPlayer. It's not so bad on mobile devices as there as in an app for each, but it used to be really useful to have the radio channels available on non-portable devices such as the XBox 360. It's almost as if the BBC are afraid of even mentioning iPlayer and radio in the same breath, it always seems that whenever the continuity announcer makes reference to streaming a show they only mention the Radio 4 website.

  2. Gorak

    Withholding episodes creates "event TV"

    Not if people are watching it on the iPlayer.

    It's not "tune in next week" anymore, it's "check back sometime in the next 7 days".

  3. jason 7

    How I see the BBC now...

    Imagine Stewart Lee on his Comedy Vehicle stand up in one of his high pitch ranty bits -

    "Hew Stew, you love the BBC, love it! You love cake don't you Stew so have more cake more lovely cake, cake, cake, cake! You love Dr Who too don't you! Well have more Daleks and Cybermen, you love Cybermen don't you Stew! Well have a load move in with you and on the TV all the time! You love X list celebrities making twats of themselves don't you well have more and more till you are puking sequins and fake tan Stew! You love it! You love cake!...Did we forget cake and Dr Who and dancing twats? YOU WILL LOVE THEM!!!!!"

    Repeat five times for at least 15 minutes of the routine until show gets cancelled...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Event tv

    Requires quality content. BBC reinvent yourself for 2000 first sort out the crap content and then aim at Netflix.

    The Xmas day stats are telling, not one show I would have watched even time shifted. Xmas bake up, Christmas come laugh and vote. The midwife...typical period drama the BBC tries to claim is unique but not really for maybe 10years already.

    The BBC is rubbish and the sooner it either cuts down its faux liberal remit and gets core tax funding or just ceases altogether won't be soon enough. The quality is not much higher than tmz these days.

    People who are pro BBC are usually basing it on their rose tinted childhood.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Event tv

      "The Xmas day stats are telling"

      though overall audiences are dropping "BBC One had eight of the 10 most-watched programmes on 25 December, while ITV had two" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38498985)

  5. Lotaresco

    The bit that puzzles me is...

    Several series have already been published on the iPlayer as "box sets" - the pedant in me says that should be "boxed sets" but not for iPlayer because there's no box. I spotted this with some surprise recently when I went to the iPlayer to find some series my wife was watching. Sorry I can't remember what it was, it was that exciting. Although on TV they had got as far as episode 2, all of the series was on iPlayer. I then noticed several other unboxed/never likely to see a box "box sets" on there. This was back in November. So it's not "news" as such unless the news is that this is now policy, not just something that was happening.

    Possibly it was the BBC trying out the idea.

    They also seem to be using the on-line BBC 3 channel to try out series and then later transmit them on another channel. For example, "Class" is now being aired on BBC One.

    1. Mint Sauce

      Re: The bit that puzzles me is...

      Have an upvote for for consistent use of 'series' rather than 'season' :-)

    2. Alien8n

      Re: The bit that puzzles me is...

      BBC3: That was always the remit, even when BBC3 was on-air. There were quite a few shows that started on BBC3 and then moved. Unfortunately there were also a few good shows that only had one series and then faded into obscurity (deliberate pun, I really liked Fades, actually held my attention more than Being Human, which I kind of drifted off pretty much as shown as they commissioned it as an actual series)

  6. Nick London
    Coat

    BBC should not charge for lrgacy programs.

    All well and good but since we pay the licence fee why do they charge for old series. Channel 4's All 4 has lots of legacy series for free.

    I used to use a program that could download radio iplayer content but BBC forced the writer to stop distributing it. Pity as I liked collecting some of the series.

    So I propose that licence payers get a login like Netflix and can then stream legacy content for free which can be shared with 2 or three family members just like Netflix.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: BBC should not charge for lrgacy programs.

      "Channel 4's All 4 has lots of legacy series for free."

      Define "free". Last time I tried to use the Channel 4 "watch again" - it demanded that my ad blocker must be switched off. I am happy to endure adverts inserted in the programme stream - but no way am I going to open up my PC to unknown adverts in my browser.

      1. tiggity Silver badge

        Re: BBC should not charge for lrgacy programs.

        And the All 4 app does not work on rooted android device (I assume another over zealous anti ad block effort as with rooted android can set up hosts to kill the IPs of ad slingers)

        ITV player / hub similarly whinges about ad blockers (but app runs on rooted android)

        Fully agree that "in content" ads would be OK but going to dubious third party stuff a definite non starter for security reasons

    2. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: BBC should not charge for lrgacy programs.

      "All well and good but since we pay the licence fee why do they charge for old series."

      Because they can.

      How many employees does the Beeb have? And they all have salaries. The big cheese probably has a MASSIVE salary. I know Jonathan Ross had one such thing. For being somewhat nice on TV.

      Licence money sure can distort reality.

      1. MOV r0,r0

        Re: BBC should not charge for lrgacy programs.

        How many employees does the Beeb have? And they all have salaries. The big cheese probably has a MASSIVE salary.

        Undistorted reality from the BBC's own 2016 accounts: they had around 23,000 staff costing £990m. The soon to be abolished Trust cost £4.2m, exec board was a not-massive £3.65m - all increases over 2015 though. Although 'stars' were down £8m to £200m it seems the cost reductions the BBC have been making have been to content rather than staff. Utterly timid.

        Average redundancy appears to be around 16 months pay - somewhat more than employment law requires.

        On the plus side head of BBC Worldwide Tim Davie is paid more than the DG and none of it comes from the Licence Fee.

        1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

          Re: BBC should not charge for lrgacy programs.

          "Although 'stars' were down £8m to £200m"

          Well, that's not a lot is it? I mean, think about all the stars at BBC! Let's see now.. Eh... I'm sure something will come to mind soon.

  7. TRT Silver badge

    This is LONG overdue...

    Because I went to the BBC store to but the animated version of Power of the Daleks when it came out. First time I'd been there, so I had a poke around. Return of Doctor Mysterio was available from the BBC Store for like £2.99 or something, but it was on iPlayer for free (well, included in my license fee) for the next 30 days. Weird stuff.

    So I looked at the rest of their catalogue. Huge amounts of cross over on there. Some stuff was commercialised, some not, iPlayer had some stuff available which hadn't been "broadcast" during the last 30 days but was just offered up due to related programming or current events. BBC Store has serials dating back to the 70s and earlier.

    If it's all brought together, tied up with the license fee handling stuff, it could be a really great thing. As it is, it looks like a multitude of different project teams all working on their won way of doing things with the merest hint of a guiding hand on the tiller, most evident by corporate branding similarities but without a commonality of UI or technical design. Which is exactly what it is!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is LONG overdue...

      "As it is, it looks like a multitude of different project teams all working on their won way of doing things with the merest hint of a guiding hand on the tiller"

      You just described working at the BBC.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hyprocritical scenario

    Wasn't the BBC told it should NOT compete for prime time viewing after pulling ratings on Strictly better than whatever else was about at the time?

    Can someone help me understand the difference?

    1. Tom 7

      Re: Hyprocritical scenario

      iPlayer is 'on demand' all the time. Prime time is prime time not all the time.

  9. King Jack
    Trollface

    Compete if you really want to

    If the BBC want to 'compete' with commercial broadcasters then let them. But let's make it on an even footing. Scrap the Tax, let them make shows that people want to watch or go under. Make fat cats on top earn their wages/worth just like what happens in 'real' companies. I remember a BBC campaign where they stressed that they could make unique programs because of the unique way they a funded. Yet they deliberately try to compete with other channels by showing dross. You cannot have it both ways. I hope I live long enough to see the BBC licence fee scrapped. They (BBC) will make a saving of millions by no chasing people who see them for what they are.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Compete if you really want to

      I agree in some ways - but I'd personally be Ok to keep paying Licence Fee if (a) they drop the nonsense and do what they're good at (Yes Minister, Fawlty Towers, Python; House of Cards - the original; that sort of thing), (b) they stop showing adverts (trailers for their own shows, thinly disguised in news or current affairs), and (c) those who pay the licence fee can get to content regardless of where they are - and those who dont, cant get it free just because theyre in the right place.

  10. JDX Gold badge

    Why don't they just license their content to Netflix et al?

    I don't really understand the motivation here. Surely the aim is to get people consuming BBC content, and to generate revenue from that, not just to get people using their own app?

  11. Neill Mitchell

    Great, so now I'll be able to binge watch an entire series of "Mrs Brown's Boys" in advance of broadcast. Either that or stick my head in a mincer. Don't make me choose.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Mrs Brown's Boys - That shit isn't even made by the BBC they buy it! What a waste of money? I wonder if they do it to keep those in NI happy and to show they are being diverse?

  12. jason 7

    Another problem they have...

    ...as more people like myself and others have done in switching to other TV sources is that when they do produce the one or two gems in the constant flow of turds, they will get missed.

    I guess we'll catch them when they come to Netflix...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Megaphone

      Re: Another problem they have...

      I almost never watch anything on the Beeb and what I do watch is on catch-up via my NOW TV box.

      One thing I would say about iPlayer content, is that everything has subtitles and as someone with dodgy hearing (and rubbish speakers on my flat-screen tv) saves me having to turn up the volume to annoying levels.

      (Bull horn icon in lieu of "Can You Hear Me, Mother?" icon).

  13. Jon Jones 73

    No

    "The decision [in 2009] forced the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to each create their own apps"

    Not it didn't. iPlayer was up and running at the end of 2007. ITV Player at the end of 2008. 4OD launched in 2006.

  14. Michael Habel

    Global lol! That's hilarious for a broadcaster as tight as the BBC. Well I suppose it could be Global if you can get yourself a decent VPN.

  15. Stevie

    Bah!

    They'll be able to test the metrics of episodic vs binge publication by the success or otherwise of such ventures as The Grand Tour on Amazon, no?

    Or do the BBC think that they are the first to come up with the model?

  16. Shufflemoomin

    "Withholding episodes creates "event TV" – a common cultural experience – and results in increased attention."

    Ah, no. Withholding episodes drives people to Torrents and YouTube. If someone wants to see something, they'll find it online somewhere. They're not going to wait around until it shows up in the TV listings and sit down to watch it at a time dictated by the BBC. It's not the 80s any more.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      WTF?

      How is the BBC going to drive them to torrents and YouTube if they've not broadcasted it yet? Pirates don't have time tellies.

  17. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    "exec board was a not-massive £3.65m"

    Here are actual salaries for the executives:

    £450,000

    £395,000

    £295,000

    £340,000

    £340,000

    £295,000

    Not exactly frugal with our money. Nice work if you can get it.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Now look at Netflix's board.

      Of course, it's the BBC which is profligate...

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