BBC & YouTube Reportedly Heading for Landmark Deal
According to The Financial Times, the BBC is finalizing a deal with YouTube to debut "bespoke" programming for the global streaming service.
The BBC Charter is once again under review, as the current deal expires at the end of 2027. It's been a long decade since the last Charter Review, carried out under Tory austerity, and engineered to drive the public broadcaster deeper into debt. The new charter is coming at a better time this decade, with Labour in charge, and the streaming wars settling out in a way that allows the BBC to make desperately needed modernizations to maintain its quickly fading global hegemony.
While some of us (read: everyone who has ever bylined at Telly Visions) would prefer the BBC to open iPlayer to the rest of the world and let us pay a license fee like everyone else, that's not realistic for a myriad of reasons. However, new, creative ways to get around the geoblocking of the BBC's homegrown content are bubbling up, including a reportedly forthcoming deal with YouTube.
According to The Financial Times, the BBC is finalizing a deal with YouTube to debut "bespoke" programming for the global streaming service. These new series will debut globally on YouTube before they land on iPlayer, a significant departure from how the BBC operates. (A very few BBC shows are allowed to debut simultaneously on iPlayer and American streaming services, such as Doctor Who, but never first.)
YouTube had a short-lived foray into original programming in the mid-teens, but quickly shuttered the effort when it wasn't an instant success. Being a platform for broadcasters to premiere their shows globally is a much better deal all around, allowing the Alphabet-owned site to bask in the reflected glow of the BBC's highbrow reputation.
The BBC, meanwhile, is struggling to attract younger viewers, who have been turning away from old-school broadcast networks in droves. According to the report, the BBC will aim to debut younger-skewing shows made for BBC3 and the CBBC, most of which currently wind up buried on Hulu with little to no marketing.*
(*Considering that way the Disney deal wth Doctor Who ended, it would not be a surprise if the Hulu/BBC3 partnership dissolves within the next few years.)
Neither the BBC nor YouTube has responded to a request for comment; however, the FT says the deal could be announced "as early as next week."
