In The Frame – March ’16

Tom Pammenter Published: 31.03.2016 Industry news

Netflix has dealt a blow to Channel 4 after the OTT provider bought the rights to show Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror for a reported $40 million.

From DVD mail-order firm to the UK’s top streaming service, Netflix now boasts five million UK subscribers – that’s nearly a quarter of UK households – and plans to spend $5 billion on original content. Amazon (with 1.6 million subscribers) and Sky’s internet service Now TV (which has fewer than one million customers), in comparison, are nowhere near.

Global media company Fullscreen is expected to launch an ad-free subscription video streaming service on April 26, to deliver original content to the United States’ 13- to 30-year-old demographic, and Sony has confirmed that it’s to offer 4K UHD content via its HD movie streaming service, ULTRA, from April 4 on Sony 4K UHD TVs with Android TV in the US.

Meanwhile, Hulu, the American OTT provider, has launched a new virtual reality app.

BBC News

The BBC and ITV are in talks (along with NBCU, owner of the rights to Downtown Abbey) to launch a Netflix-style streaming service to focus on providing popular, older content. If it goes ahead, the move could open up a new revenue stream, which would be crucial as the BBC looks to find £800 million in annual savings.

MPs Gareth Thomas and Steve Baker have called for the BBC to be restructured as a mutual organisation, owned by licence fee payers – rather than outside investors – who would also elect its board. The two MPs argued their case in a letter to the Times:

Who, exactly, owns it? And to whom is it accountable, not least over the expenditure of more than £3bn of our money? The BBC Trust is accountable to no one, really. This creates a vacuum into which political interference from the government (of any colour) can leak.

Finally, the BBC is to shut its online store that currently sells DVDs for hit shows as well as merchandise, such as Doctor Who Monopoly and Sherlock T-shirts.

Sky (Sports) News

Sky has signed a five-year deal, commencing 2019, for exclusive UK rights to show Formula One motor racing. The British Grand Prix, however, as well as highlights of all other races and qualifying sessions, will be shown ‘free-to-air’. Channel 4 currently has rights to show ten races a year.

Every race from 2017 will be shown in Ultra High Definition via Sky Q.

A new channel, Sky Sports Mix, is to launch soon – a sports channel that’ll be available to all Sky TV subscribers. Some Premier League matches, games from La Liga in Spain and MLS in the US – as well as World Cup qualifiers – will be available, and at least two other ‘prime time’ live F1 races per season.

The move is designed to win back viewers who’ve opted for pay-as-you go sport via Now TV and encourage a higher proportion of the Sky’s 12 million-plus subscribers to add its sports packages to their monthly TV plan.

Formula One will be one of the first sports to benefit from experiments by Sky’s new virtual reality studio, Sky VR Studio, a dedicated in-house VR production unit, which launched this month. Other sports to benefit will include boxing and cycling.

Finally, the Osterley-based broadcaster is to begin commissioning children’s content for the first time after ordering a remake of iconic animation Morph from Aardman Animations. The stop-motion animated favourite will be brought back, along with his buddy Chas, as part of a new drive into children’s programming that includes a new Sky Kids app, which will include content from channels including CBeebies, Nick Jr and Cartoon Network.

And finally…

The RTS Programme Awards 2016 took place in London this month. Winners included Anthony Hopkins, Catastrophe and Ant & Dec.
Louis Theroux is to return to BBC2 as he explores alcoholism and brain injury in two hour-long programmes.
Following our recent post on Red Bull and Vice Media’s move into linear TV, Vice is expanding across Eastern Europe with the launch of country-specific services in Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia. The New York-based company has grown this month – with the acquisition of a majority stake in British production company Pulse Films. (Vice owns this pub, too).
An hour-long documentary charting Mo Farah’s training schedule and family life leading up to this summer’s Rio Olympics is to air on BBC1, in the run-up to the Games.
Another fly-on-the-wall sports doc, to be made by Gary Lineker’s production company, Goalhanger Films, follows boxer Anthony Joshua for a year and reveals his preparations for a world heavyweight title fight. The series launches on Wednesday April 6 on BBC3 and will be released on the following days before the fight on April 9.
Staying with sport, some of this year’s Olympic Games will be covered in 8K ‘Super Hi-Vision’ (for Japan), and there will be 4K UHD versions created for testing and comparison purposes.
Ofcom is looking at altering the 9pm watershed, which has been in place for more than 50 years, by making greater use of PIN protection technology.
Dermot O’Leary will return to The X Factor when it comes back to ITV in the autumn.