In The Frame November '20

Tom Pammenter Published: 30.11.2020 Industry news

This month's latest news across the industry.

Streaming/Online/Tech

BARB, the audience measurement and TV ratings organisation, has released new figures showing the growing reach of SVoD services in the UK. Overall, 17 million UK households now subscribe to an SVoD service, up more than three million since the third quarter in 2019, meaning 60% of UK households have access to an SVoD provider. Netflix continues to be the most popular, with almost 15 million households subscribing.

However, while the popularity of streaming services grows, home internet connections in the UK are often inadequate: nearly a third (30 per cent) of customers receive download speeds lower than 2/mbs.

Apple TV is now available through Microsoft’s Xbox consoles, BritBox has gone live in Australia following earlier launches in the US, Canada and the UK, and Froot, a new LGBTQ+ streaming service, has launched in the UK.

Netflix is trialling a linear channel in France. Netflix Direct will be accessible only via a browser, rather than through set-top boxes.

Disney+, meanwhile, has attracted 73.7 million subscribers globally, a year after launching, although this success doesn’t alter the top three subscription services in the US, which remain Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu.

BBC News

Negotiations to agree the level of the licence fee from 2022 have begun. “It’s time to ask what we want from the BBC of the future,” the culture secretary Oliver Dowden wrote in the Telegraph. Three days later, the BBC chairman and director-general sent this letter to the secretary of state, writing: “The challenge is to make sure we continue to offer great programmes and services for everyone.”

The BBC’s Creative Diversity Unit, led by June Sarpong, has launched the Creative Allies Initiative, to unite organisations within and beyond the creative industry to promote the concept of allyship, and the corporation has announced its 100 Women List, “celebrating inspirational and influential women from across the globe”.

Elsewhere, BBC Sounds has been added to Freesat’s range of 4K TV set-top boxes and apps.

And finally...

ITV, whose third-quarter revenue is down 16%, has launched its first branded podcast, My Life in TV, a series of interviews with some of the broadcaster’s most familiar faces.
TNT International, the first free-to-air Russian channel launched in the UK on the Freeview platform, is now available via Channelbox on Freeview 271.
Channel 4’s chief executive Alex Mahon has announced the broadcaster’s new five-year strategy, Future4. Channel 4’s Director of Programmes, Ian Katz, meanwhile, has outlined its latest content and commissioning strategy.
CNN drew a network record 6.1 million viewers in primetime during the week of the US election. Fox News and MSNBC drew averages of 5.9 million and 4.7 million respectively.
US sports network ESPN is to reduce its workforce of 6,000 people by about 500 – roughly 8%.
2019/20 was a record-breaking year for British TV in the international marketplace, when exports increased 6% to £1.48 billion.
Hackman Capital Partners, which owns sites including Culver Studios in Los Angeles and Silvercup Studios in New York, is to invest £300 million in building a film and TV studio in Dagenham, Essex.