BBC making AI deals with Silicon Valley and plotting streaming device for PSBs
Moves to transition the UK’s free to air broadcasters to an all-streaming future have gathered pace with 2035 a likely tipping point.
The BBC is leading the charge. Today its channels remains the most watched in the country and it claims to be the most trusted news broadcaster in the world. Plans to preserve this for the next generation are its priority and involves among other things expanding its content credentials service Verify; taking control of the UK’s inevitable shift to IP; doing deals with Big Tech on AI to scale production; and securing prominence for its channels on streaming services. The latter further includes a plan to develop a streaming media device dedicated to UK free to air channels.
“The BBC can become an institution that builds social capital and stimulates growth in the online, AI age,” BBC Director-General Tim Davie said in a speech at Salford, Manchester yesterday. “Unless we act we will drift. Becoming weaker, less trusting, less competitive.”
Calling the BBC “a precious national asset” Davie said the organization aims to have “maximum catalytic effect” on the UK. “With courage, collaboration, investment and imagination, we can create a UK that is more inclusive, more secure, and more successful,” he said.
Davie called for a national plan for IP switchover in the 2030s including proposals for a new streaming media device for Freely the subscription free IPTV service that is run as a joint venture between BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5 (owned by Paramount Global) to stream linear channels and on-demand programming.
“I talked a few years ago about my belief that we needed to own digital switchover, not get dragged, and proactively shape the future,” he said.
“We think now is the time to confirm an IP switchover in the 2030s, setting out the conditions and providing certainty to ensure success.
“To help, we want to double down on Freely as a universal free service to deliver live TV over broadband. We are considering a streaming media device with Freely capabilities built in, with a radically simplified user interface specifically designed to help those yet to benefit from IP services.”
Battle for visibility
Freely launched a year ago and is available on a number of smart TVs and OS providers including Hisense, Panasonic, Sharp, TCL, TiVo, Toshiba, VIDAA and Amazon Fire TV. It was also recently made available on Philips and JVC TVs, though not yet on Samsung.
New features for the platform released this month include a Backwards TV Guide enabling users to catch-up or on demand TV viewing on the same day as the live broadcast.
Davie is concerned public service content will get lost to audiences in the transition to streaming. UK media regulator Ofcom is currently reviewing the prominence for PSB content on YouTube and other social media platforms in a report due to be published in the next couple of months.
Channel 5 Director Sarah Rose said last week that this may not be enough. “We are all moving into streaming but PSBs are too precious to leave to Korean Connected TV manufacturers. We can’t sit and ask for it passively. I think we need intervention and regulation.”
Davie warned, “We need to see critically robust implementation of the Media Act at pace – to secure good PSB prominence on every platform. If people can’ t find our services, and prominence is simply secured by the highest bidder, then we can’t build connections and trust.”
A dedicated Freely device would give the PSBs control over how their content is presented, without having to negotiate with Smart TV vendors or social platforms about visibility.
UK audiences spend more time watching traditional broadcasters than they do streaming services today. Figures show 87% of those age four and above watch the traditional broadcasters each month and spend an average 137 minutes a day doing so. By comparison, 78% of people watch a streaming service and they spend only 40 minutes a day doing so.
Yet, in 2024, for the first time, TV sets were the most-used device for watching content on YouTube at home, according to Barb. Forty one per cent of YouTube viewing was done on TV sets, ahead of 31% on smartphones.
Davie claimed that trust in the BBC rose in 2024. Over 80% of UK adults watch or listen to BBC content every week and 94% monthly. Three-quarters of UK adults use BBC News weekly, and the BBC is the only UK media brand in the top 5 most used for young people.
“We’re the world’s most trusted global news provider with an audience of 450 million weekly,” Davie said.
“We’re seeing record growth online driven by rapid innovation, with iPlayer the UK’s fastest-growing VOD platform in 2024 ahead of all global competitors.”=
He said the BBC would “dramatically increases” its news presence on platforms like YouTube and Tik Tok “to ensure we have a stronger position amidst the noise.”
He added, “We are the biggest news account globally on Instagram, but we want to deploy new technology and skills to create more content that works on these platforms while incentivising links to our services.
“And we need to build Verify across more services globally. [We will] combine agentic AI with trusted BBC journalism to create a new gold standard fact checking tool. Our aim is to work globally with other PSBs to ensure a healthy core of fact-based news.”
The majority of BBC staff are already using AI in their work, Davie said, adding that the BBC sees big potential in developing its own bespoke LLM, deploying agentic AI capabilities.
“This will all be done in support of our public service mission – never relinquishing editorial oversight. We are looking at new, major partnerships with the world leading big-tech companies, the hyper scalers.
“As part of this, we are already working on the media supply chain, the processes behind the scenes that gets content from the camera to screen, from microphone to headphone. This will open up huge creative possibilities.
“And it will allow us to drive efficiencies and reinvest into world-class content. The UK can lead the market in developing a new wave of smarter platforms, like iPlayer, with improved functionality.”
All of this is backed up against a massive drop in funding, certainly relative to major international streamers, and a tussle over the future funding model of the BBC which has its licence fee up for renewal in 2027.
Davie rejected advertising and subscription models while calling for “modernisation and reform. But in doing so we must safeguard universality,” he said in his speech.
One UK broadcaster streaming gateway
One potential route forward, which has been floated before, is to combine all the streaming services of the UK PSBs under one portal – which logically, given it is so well known and used, would be branded iPlayer.
Channel 4 first offer TV on-demand it launched 4oD in 2006, just months after the launch of iPlayer. But its current £1 billion ($1.3bn) a year revenue may not be enough to sustain a modern distribution platform with all the associated investment costs into the long term, according to ‘insiders’ speaking to the BBC’s culture and media editor.
ITV has spent hundreds of millions of pounds to create ITVX, its streaming platform for the Netflix-age. The question is whether any of the UK’s can continue to invest in both content and infrastructure necessary to compete with Netflix – or is their survival of sorts better served by merger?
Peter Bazalgette, a former Chairman of ITV, told the BBC that PSBs will need some consolidation or, at the very least, more cooperation in future.
“We're in danger of having no public service broadcasting within a decade, certainly within 20 years,” he said. “We don't have a strategy for their survival. It's that serious. The regulators need to start thinking about it. Mergers may well be part of the answer. There should be fewer companies in the future.”
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