Could UKTV be scrapped?

http://www.a516digital.com/2018/09/could-uktv-be-sacrificed-in-bid-to.html


An article from the excellent A516 Digital website suggests that there may be a possibility that UKTV could be scrapped in order to allow the BBC to collaborate in a Netflix rival. Or to summarise BBC Studios keeps about 50% of the channels on air, and Discovery take the other 50% of channels.

It'll be an interesting move if it comes to fruition. Certainly they'd be silly to scrap the likes of Dave, Gold or Drama. But certainly what's the value of keeping the likes of W, Home or Eden on air long term? Not much if you ask me. Certainly it's probably in the BBC's interests to invest in such a service, although we all remember Project Kangaroo. As noted Discovery inherited Scripps' share of UKTV, and nothing has been said as to whether they would have kept their stake within the venture.

Thoughts anyone?

I think the BBC has a tough hill to climb in persuading audiences in the UK to subscribe just to watch content they've already watched on free-to-air TV (and feel they've already paid for)

Advertising funded FTA services like Dave 'feel' different to an audience, as I suspect does BBC content provided as a small part of Amazon and/or Netflix.

There could be some advantages with regards to the linear channels. Yesterday could revert to being a full time factual channel which would have Discovery's back catalogue, merging with Discovery History.

It's a safe bet that Gold and Dave would move to the BBC, considering the amount of the BBC archive used on both channels.

I've always felt iPlayer could do with a massive overhaul in terms of content. Why isn't it providing Box Sets of classic shows?

There is some.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p05pn9jr

I do wish they did open the archive up more though.

Rights ... The BBC doesn't have these to exploit post agreed broadcast slots for programmes made by Indies since the transition to independent production. There's also the issue of agreed union terms, and the finance involved. for transmission of those made in the pre-digital era. There's a very narrow window from c1996 to c2004 where most programmes are available on reasonable terms. Whatever UK Britbox arrives the rights issues will need to be resolved too.

Can they be done retroactively or is it another TVS Archive situation?

I don't think it should be scrapped. Less channels = Less competition

Yes in most cases ...... But there'll be a cost element, hence the monitising via UKTV of some current and fairly recent content, some of which is used to defray rights access before profit taken, and the need to monitise UK-Britbox. The BBC simply cannot unless there are exceptional circumstances afford relicencing expensive popular content for iPlayer only. The BBC owning the production rights to Doctor Who enables them to add currently all of the 2000's era series content to the iPlayer.

I think something needs to happen to UKTV in one way or the other, in that they don't have enough content to fully support their ten channels. I think content originally designed for Gold is spilling onto other channels where they're struggling to find anything worth showing. Birds of a Feather, for example, ends up on Drama. You've also got Allo Allo on Yesterday, and I've seen Gavin and Stacey span Gold, Dave and W. Even W - the network's flagship channel - ends up churning out programmes originally commissioned for the likes of Really.

I know money is the key priority to them, and they're bound to lose money by closing channels. But seriously, in my opinion, it just cheapens the UKTV brand when they have programmes on channels that really shouldn't be there. And my stance probably won't change until I stop seeing The Two Ronnies on a channel dedicated to history documentaries.

In all fairness though, that sort of situation has occurred before on other networks and tends to be trend related. Music channels are a good example of this when MTV and friends cut back dramatically on actually airing any music in favour of cheap reality crap. The sister channels did move back towards music eventually though, whereas MTV has pretty much committed itself to anything but music.

Pretty much like 4Music really, which is effectively E4 in different colours these days. Why they don't just rebrand the damn thing I really don't know as I can't remember the last time it played any music.

That and Pointless on a history based channel is something I don’t get. But it certainly cheapens the brand and the free to air offerings. The likes of Gold, Dave, Drama, Good Food and Alibi have enough content to keep going and justify their existence, but when you don’t have enough documentaries to put on a history based channel does devalue it. Some content is very thinly spread between Really and Home. Gavin and Stacey is another example of being thinly spread for no good reason.