Senior ITV and Channel 4 executives have said a number of challenges would need to be addressed before they could take up a recent BBC suggestion of putting their streaming content on iPlayer.
The proposal for sharing iPlayer with the UK’s other Public Service Broadcasters, which also include Channel 5 and STV, was contained in the BBC’s response to a government consultation on its future structure and funding.
Content from Welsh language broadcaster S4C is already available in the app and can be watched even by those who don’t hold a valid TV Licence.
On Tuesday a committee of MPs, who are holding a separate review of the BBC, questioned executives from ITV and Channel 4 on a number of issues related to the BBC, including the shared app proposal.
While acknowledging that the BBC’s suggestion was just a single line in its consultation response Magnus Brooke, who is ITV’s Director of Strategy Policy and Regulation, identified a number of “challenges” with it.
He said that of ITV’s various joint projects with the BBC over the years, the successful ones had been those where both broadcasters – plus any partners – shared the risk, funding and control equally. He cited Freely, the subscription-free linear streaming service, as a recent example of this.
However Mr Brooke said the BBC’s proposal appeared to be for other PSBs to become “tenants” on the existing iPlayer rather than collectively building a new service, something which raises “many challenges”.
Among those he identified was the BBC’s willingness to give meaningful prominence to non-BBC content within in its app.
Another stems from the vastly different funding models for the BBC, which gets around £3.8bn each year from the Licence Fee, and the other PSBs.
Brooke highlighted that the iPlayer lacks any mechanism for delivering adverts to audiences, a capability the commercial broadcasters need in order to monetise their content.
ITV and Channel 4 have invested heavily in cutting edge technologies which can deliver highly targeted advertising to users of their existing standalone streaming apps. And, while unpopular with some audiences, ITV’s investment has also seen it roll out new ad formats such as split-screen in-game adverts during the Six Nations.
Brooke suggested it would take “a long time” to bring such data-rich ad technologies to iPlayer.
Channel 4’s Chief Commercial Affairs Officer, Martin Baker, agreed with Brooke’s points but also described the proposal as “extremely interesting” and “a way to potentially achieve scale quicker.”
He added: “Scale is going to be important. I would not underplay the complexities, but it feels like a really interesting thing that should be pursued.”