from Hacker News

How can traditional British TV survive the US streaming giants

by asplake on 5/14/25, 5:44 AM with 315 comments

• by jemmyw on 5/17/25, 6:05 AM

  It has already pretty much died, and I don't think it was by the hand of streaming. It was whatever process put a stop to new shows in the template of the really great shows we had in the past. At some point the risk taking stopped and everything just became the same drudge. Of course, there was always plenty of drudge.

  It was the comedies that were particularly good and very British. Some were very unusual and bizarre, the late night shows. But they were also where writers and comedians got a break and then became mainstream. I would guess that kind of thing is now made for the internet, and its a shame to see everything go so niche.

  An article I came across a couple of years ago (wish I could find it!) talked about how there was this period of time when British TV started to diversify the source of talent, around the 80s and 90s. You got shows like Red Dwarf where the cast were not all from the same small set of drama schools. But it has now reverted and that kind of low budget, take a chance show doesn't get shown on the main channels.

• by gadders on 5/17/25, 1:49 PM

  Whatever happens, they need to decriminalise the license fee.

  "Almost a third of women’s convictions are for not paying the TV licence fee, figures have revealed.

  Women are ten times more likely to be convicted for not paying the £157.50 annual fee than men – with growing numbers of women then being slapped with criminal records, Ministry of Justice data shows."

  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tv-licence-f...

• by globalise83 on 5/17/25, 5:54 AM

  Given that the BBC has failed to offer their own solution for the many British and other people living abroad or with second homes abroad who would be interested in accessing their content, and instead driven us to consume a small subset of their content through Netflix, my sympathy is limited.

• by sunrunner on 5/17/25, 12:59 PM

  It always seems crazy to me that in the early 1980s the BBC undertook the Computer literacy project, commissioned Acorn Computers to manufacture the BBC Micro, and produced educational content to support learning and use around said system itself.

  I understand why the chances of that being a profitable enterprise now given the development of computing hardware are practically zero, but even the idea that the BBC would produce interesting educational content now seems wild (not counting documentaries as that's not often something that provides information you can act on and use). If I want that kind of content now it's pretty much a guarantee that I'll end up on YouTube.

  Nowadays they're a non-neutral-seeming news outlet and producer of low-risk dreck that also demands I pay the UK TV Licence fee even just to watch _other_ channels. Do I need a reading licence to read books written by other people? Didn't think so.

  At this point it's simply a subscription fee for a service I don't want, and so I don't subscribe. Bring back quality content (subjective of course, but some variety would go a long way), perhaps some risk-taking (something on par with Channel 4's Utopia seems like a good goal). Oh, and perhaps cut the salaries of some of the unnecessarily highly-paid reporters. Just a thought.

• by 3036e4 on 5/17/25, 7:08 AM

  Here in Sweden the public service SVT has had its streaming service for years and I watch that more than I watch any of the commecial services I pay for (currently three of them).Incidentally that means mostly watching BBC (crime) series as SVT buy the rights to ridiculous numbers of those and many are very good. I would not mind if broadcast tv was shut down, but some older people would probably complain.

• by nottorp on 5/17/25, 3:31 PM

  What I really don't understand is:

  The UK is one of the few countries (among the countries with universal health care) that doesn't have a separate tax for health care. That means they can handle earmarking huge amounts of money for a public service out of the general taxation.

  Why do they need to use this tv license thing for BBC then?

• by myrandomcomment on 5/17/25, 5:05 PM

  My wife and I agree that we would happily pay $400 a year to be able to use the iPlayer in the US. We are not alone. Just open up the TV license to anyone.

• by wesleyd on 5/18/25, 1:09 PM

  British TV is doing _great_ in the streaming era: black mirror, adolescence, peaky blinders, the crown, call the midwife, derry girls, downtown abbey; and so many great police procedurals: line of duty, endeavour, the bay, Sherlock, grace; even those Harlan coben miniserieses - the ones with at least one absurd plot twist per episode - are great fun!

  While I’ll be among the first to moan that we’ll never see another red dwarf, python, tinker tailor/smiley’s people, yes minister, father ted [0] .. British tv is still producing great stuff.

  It’s the “bureaucrats” in the bbc who are under threat from streaming. I’m not losing sleep!

  [0] made in Britain; simply could not have been made in Ireland as was.

• by bigiain on 5/17/25, 6:33 AM

  The US streaming giants seem to be doing a pretty good job of ensuring they themselves do not survive. Perhaps all British TV needs to do is wait out the enshittification that's already in play.

• by Simon_O_Rourke on 5/17/25, 7:21 AM

  Simple, by being much better and well written perhaps?

• by M_bara on 5/17/25, 5:32 PM

  I’d pay more for bbc content than i do for Netflix or prime. It’s typically very good content that is strongly geo locked behind iplayer and you have to play whack a mole to get it…

• by subpixel on 5/17/25, 11:54 PM

  The answer is to become a digital-only, subscription service, and to keep producing the good stuff.

  Basically, combine what Britbox does today in some countries and what TheBox used to do for BitTorrent.

  First and foremost, be the only place current British tv can be seen. On top of that, have a deep, exhaustive archive of past British content.

  NYTimes.com is a good model. If you want what they got, you subscribe, no matter who or where you are. The model works.

• by thaumasiotes on 5/17/25, 5:23 AM

  How can traditional British TV survive anything? Four episodes is considered a reasonable annual output.

• by anthk on 5/17/25, 7:16 AM

  Good TV programmers against a 90% reality TV turds/mediocre series even on paid networks.

• by rex_lupi on 5/17/25, 5:32 AM

  'Traditional british tv' has produced some of the best shows to be ever made. The writing, acting and production quality of the 70s-80s classic british shows surpasses anything being produced these days in 4k. Spent so many delectable hours watching old shows from that era, some of them quite obscure. Modern shows feel like mass-produced in an assembly line, devoid of what one would call 'class'.

• by blibble on 5/17/25, 2:59 PM

  they could start by producing things people want to watch...

• by RenThraysk on 5/17/25, 12:08 PM

  Feel this is a disingenuous question, as British TV will do just fine on streaming giants. Just the BBC cannot and will not make them, and struggling to survive.

  Mobland on Paramount+

  Grand Tour on Amazon

  Clarkson's Farm on Amazon

• by sansnomme on 5/17/25, 6:19 PM

  They can try making more of what people want and charging for it with ads. People liked The Office, Mr Bean, Doctor Who. The BBC can produce perfectly good telly if they want to be competitive. Don't be Canada and subsidize mediocrity and bad art with public money. Soft power should be earned, not bought and paid by public coffers.

• by fdb345 on 5/17/25, 4:10 PM

  [flagged]

• by synecdoche on 5/17/25, 7:03 PM

  They can do like Sweden's public service, steal everyone's money, wheter you watch the garbage or not. Great service that.

• by zeristor on 5/17/25, 5:46 AM

  The BBC won’t enable 4K on AppleTV, so I don’t bother.

• by nprateem on 5/17/25, 6:09 AM

  I like the beeb, but I don't watch it since I can only buy an annual licence and if they can afford to pay millions on individual presenters they don't need my money.

  Bring in monthly subs and cap presenter salaries and I'll dip in from time to time.

• by verisimi on 5/17/25, 6:04 AM

  I hope it doesn't survive. But I'm sure it will.

  It is a propaganda outfit (and was from inception). It has special legislation to force TV owners to pay - this tax is called the 'license fee'. In the past only people who had been 'cleared' could work there.

  While people think that the UK's recent legislation is dystopian, the reality is it was ever thus as we see with the bbc. I would be very glad to see it go, but that won't happen because - it's utility as a megaphone to the governance system remains very high.

  Here is the bbc admitting it lied for -50-, sorry, 70 (!) years, to members of parliament even, about the vetting: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43754737

  I certainly suspect this is only a partial disclosure - not only political outlooks would be considered.

  Simply a lying, propagandising institution.