Genteel mystery series The Marlow Murder Club has become the latest series originally commissioned for the BBC’s portfolio of UK commercial channels to land on iPlayer.
Created by Death in Paradise’s Robert Thorogood, the series stars Samantha Bond, Jo Martin, Cara Horgan as a trio of murder-solving residents of the Buckinghamshire town.
It debuted in March 2024 on the U&Dave channel and U streaming service, both of which are part of UKTV – the BBC’s stable of advert and subscription funded channels here in the UK.
Since the first series, which is now on iPlayer, the show has returned for two more series with a fourth set to air on U&Dave next year.
iPlayer is also repeating the first series of the Bergerac reboot which originally aired on the BBC’s U&Drama channel.
Previous UKTV shows to get later runs on iPlayer include the James Buckley comedy series Zapped, David Mitchell’s gameshow Outsiders, Big Zuu’s Big Eats, drama series Outrageous, plus Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson’s Murder on the Blackpool Express plus sequels Death on the Tyne Dial M for Middlesbrough and Murder, They Hope.
Sister Boniface Mysteries, a spin-off from the BBC’s Father Brown, also debuted on U&Drama before airing on BBC One, and new episodes of Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators premiere on the UKTV network before airing on BBC One and iPlayer.
Additionally, the BBC has more recently sought out new comedy formats which will premiere on U&Dave and U before airing on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
The decision to host so many second runs of shows from its own commercial channels would appear to contradict the BBC’s ongoing attempts to portray the Licence Fee, which funds iPlayer and the BBC-branded channels, as an essential investment in original content and creativity.
It also reverses the original point of UKTV which launched as a way of making content from the BBC’s archive available to rewatch, instead it’s now the BBC services which are increasingly repeating original UKTV shows.