Broadcasters pool content on one platform as Britbox launches in UK
The first streaming service to pool content from Britain's terrestrial broadcasters has launched in the UK.
Britbox, which brings together content from the BBC, ITV and Channels 4 and 5, hopes to take on US-based streaming giants.
The ITV majority owned venture is available from £5.99 a month.
Programming will mirror some of that available online already, with Channel 4 adding British TV box sets from its current on demand service and British films from Film4 from 2020.
Plans for the service were initially revealed in February 2019.
The platform is being billed as "the biggest collection of British box sets available in one place".
More than 600 episodes of Doctor Who will be available to stream from Boxing Day, including episodes originally aired between in the 1960s and 80s.
ITV will offer the full back catalogue of Downton Abbey and Bafta award-winning Broadchurch.
Previous series of Love Island will also be available for those wanting to refresh on relationships in the Casa Amor.
More shows from the BBC and ITV will appear as the licence agreements with services like Netflix come to a close.
Netflix and Amazon have been providing online streaming services, bringing together programmes from broadcasters around the world, since as early as the mid-2000s.
Britbox US, which launched in the country last year, has a reported 650,000 subscribers, whereas Netflix enjoys more than 60 million users across the fifty states.
A previous effort by four of the broadcasters, which had the working title Kangaroo, was dropped in 2009 after the Competition Commission ruled it unlawful.