Britbox Australia

Britbox Australia review: Great content — with some big catches

The UK-centric streaming service Britbox has rather quietly and subtly “soft launched” into Australia, at $8.99 a month. Here’s my early impressions of what it does right — and wrong.

You’ll have to forgive me here, because I’m having a moment of severe deja vu.

I can’t help but feel like I’ve been down this path before. You see, nearly a decade ago, the BBC launched a video streaming service in Australia, and I was one of the first journalists to write about it. You can still read that first review, and my later impressions over at Gizmodo Australia. The Australia-only version of BBC iPlayer didn’t last long — I think it was around a year or so — and then faded away.

So when Britbox launched in the US, I was interested, but figured that between iPlayer’s failure in market and the fact that a lot of BBC and ITV content is already widely available through other subscription platforms that we’d be lucky to see much of a service.

Rather quietly, and seemingly on a Sunday for some reason, it’s live in Australia. I’ve spent a little time digging through what’s one offer. Here’s my early thoughts.

What is it?

Britbox Australia is a subscription streaming service, offering up select drama, crime drama, comedy, documentary and lifestyle content from the archives of the BBC and ITV. It really does do what it says on the tin!

How much does it cost?

There’s two pricing tiers (at least via the Apple signup I’ve done; it’s feasible that outside the Apple store markup it may be different) at $8.99/month or $89.99 for a year if you pay upfront.

Update: Confirmed — looks like the local site is now live, as per the image below:

Is there a free trial?

There is a free Britbox Australia trial, but it’s only for seven days.

It’s worth noting that if you don’t want more than the free trial, you have to cancel “at least 24 hours before the end of your free trial”.  So it’s sorta-kinda-like a six day trial in many respects.

So what’s good about Britbox?

Like any streaming service, it’s all about the content, and I’m going to assume that if you’re keen on a service called Britbox, you’re keen on specifically British TV.

Britbox has quite a lot of this, mostly covering what you might call “classic” British TV series. There’s a lot of the extant episodes of Doctor Who to watch, including some of the animated reconstructions, which should typically be enough to get me excited… if I didn’t own them all on DVD and Blu-Ray already. But I can totally see the value here for folks who don’t like physical media.

There’s also a very small quantity of “original” content, headlined by a new series of Spitting Image, if that’s your sort of thing.

Most of the interface follows the standards you’d expect if you’ve used any other streaming platform, with large and easy to follow carousel style display for discovery, as well as an included search feature for more specific content.

For my own purposes (and bear in mind these are mostly first impressions) I’ve been watching via an iPhone. One pleasing feature here is support for both AirPlay and Chromecast from an iPhone. Not every service has that kind of support, making it pretty easy to fling content up to your TV.

So what’s not-so-good about Britbox?

App support seems a little sketchy; I could easily find it on an iOS device and I’ve read online reports suggesting it’s available for Android phones, but testing with a Shield TV, I couldn’t find the app at all. That’s where the Chromecasting ability came in dead handy, of course.

The big “new” Spitting Image series? It’s bloody awful, at least based on the couple of minutes I could bear to watch. Terrible impersonations, ordinary puppetry and the most obvious and bland jokes possible. Must do better if original content is meant to be the big hook.

Then there’s the content gaps, which are equal parts obvious and subtle. You’d think that a classic series like Dad’s Army would be an obvious inclusion, right? It’s not there. Spender? Not to be found. Auf Weidersehen, Pet? Nein. The Bill? It’s been nicked, it seems.

Doctor Who is there, and you’re promised “every Doctor” — and even get oddball fare like K9 and Company — but there are missing bits, most notably in Tom Baker’s run which (at the time of writing) seems to end with The Face of Evil.

Literally you jump from Season 14 to Season 19, and I have no idea why. Again, I don’t need these stories myself, but to many people Tom Baker is EXACTLY who they think of when they think of a classic Doctor.

Update: No, they are actually there for the classic series. However, if you go into Doctor Who via the Fourth Doctor link, they don’t show up at all. Go into Doctor Who as a show by itself, and the “missing” seasons are indeed there. This is BAD user interface design, just shoddy stuff. It really is.

Also annoying: No season 12 of Doctor Who — although that is on Stan right now.

Looking for Doctor Who eps also showed me that the search isn’t terribly good. The best episode of Christopher Eccleston’s run of the show is easily “Dalek”, and it is on Britbox — but you wouldn’t know that if you used the search function to look for “Dalek”.

There’s a genuinely weird catch if you subscribe via Apple or Amazon; according to Britbox’s own help notes, you can then only watch through those channels, and not on additional devices on other platforms.

As per the help files you get sent to via the Britbox app — although I should note they relate to the US version’s help files because that’s what you get pushed towards if you tap “help”:

There is one restriction to note. If you subscribe to BritBox through an add-on subscription to Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV Channels, unfortunately you’ll only be able to watch in their platforms.

Ouch. That’s a pretty nasty restriction to keep in mind.

Update: Now that the local site is live, I can confirm this isn’t the case, thankfully — I’ve been able to watch content through a browser even though I signed up through an iPhone. Maybe that’s US only? Either way, it’s not well explained or well handled.

Then there’s the question of the actual content. I’m a UK TV junkie from way back, but quite a lot of what’s in Britbox is already present on other streaming platforms. Content like the new Who seasons, BlackAdder, The Vicar of Dibley and others are pretty regularly available across the streaming services you’re probably already subscribed to, which somewhat lessens the Britbox value proposition.

There’s another, slightly more subtle issue here, and it’s to do with what we don’t get. In the US, a key part of the Britbox experience is the “Now” section, which fast-tracks UK content — and especially soap operas — for quick showing within hours of their UK broadcast.

There’s no such feature in the Australian version. In fact, if you’re a fan of EastEnders, Coronation Street or Hollyoaks, I’ve got some bad news for you. They’re not on Britbox at all.

We almost certainly have the deals in place for Foxtel’s UKTV to thank for that.

With a tip of the hat to Ben Ross for pointing it out to me, it’s also worth noting that there’s no offline or download facility, so you need a persistent streaming connections and can’t load up on shows for times when your Internet access might be sub-par. That’s a fairly common feature for many of Britbox’s competitors in the local streaming space.

Is Britbox Australia worth it?

Look, you’ve got little to risk if you sign up for a 7 day trial, and that can probably tell you more than I could in terms of your own watching habits.

There’s certainly plenty of content on Britbox Australia, and given the general very high quality of UK TV productions some of it is amongst the very best in the world, hands down. You could keep yourself very busy and very happy for a good long time with what’s available at launch, at least.

This is pretty clearly a “soft” launch — the word online seemed to suggest more of a media blitz tomorrow, and maybe that’s so. As a soft launch though, there’s a fair bit of work to do to get it up to speed with other competing services. I may well give Britbox a month of my subscription money — but I’m not 100% convinced that the year’s subscription would be money well spent right now.

16 thoughts on “Britbox Australia review: Great content — with some big catches”

  1. It’s patchy. Doesn’t seem to have all seasons, eg “The Durrells” – it says it has 2 seasons, but I could only find Season 1. Nothing happened when I clicked on Season 2. Same with “Morse”. Most series have been shown on the ABC, or commercial free-to-air channels.
    SBS on Demand is much better in that all seasons of most series are available – for free (with ads)

  2. I just joined and ctually payed for a subscription as I was so excited. I got two episodes of a show and bam! no connection. bloody hopeless.

  3. I have to say I have been quite disappointed in Britbox Aus. Most of what’s available is available elsewhere. Very little new content being added, and oh so limited compared to what’s available elsewhere, both on BB and on other streaming services. It’s not much better than Acorn, which is in itself a really limited service.
    I’ve been getting advertising from their overseas services and the content being added there is amazing. It’s not even content other streaming services could really want as it’s older BBC stuff not seen in years but really classic viewing.
    If IT. and BBC really want to stake a claim in the gold mine that is Australian viewing, they need to drop Foxtel ( Murdoch media be damned) and smack some real British TV on their own streaming service,. Do it fast and make it plentiful.

    1. Thank Foxtel. They are doing exclusive deals with with whoever they can to block all competition possible. The sooner Foxtel is gone the sooner we will get better streaming services unfortunately.

  4. Great write up. Thank you! I’m not a Corrie fan personally – unlike my Great Aunty Betty & co. 😉 but no East Enders?? Seriously?? That’s about as quintessentially British as you can get! I’m keen to check out the period dramas though. Sounds worth a one week trial at least.

  5. I thought Britbox would be good, so signed up for the free 7 day trial. It worked for 2 days, then wouldn’t cast to my Chrome cast any more. I uninstalled it from my iPhone and reinstalled it. No go. Uninstalled it, restarted the phone and reinstalled it again. Still no go. I cancelled my subscription with great disappointment. If they get the app working properly, I’d be interested, but offering a product with bugs won’t help them get loyal customers.

  6. I’ve just subscribed for TV viewing having exhausted my favoured content on Netflix. As the tv is a few years old it doesn’t have a native Britbox app so have had to buy a Chromecast and cast from a Samsung phone. Too early to be definitive about the Britbox app but it looks like it’s a bit clunky. However, no problems so far and I’ve got access to the recent remake of All Creatures Great and Small. Great! But no Dads Army, as someone pointed out, is unforgivable!

  7. IanR
    Agree with the review. Constant niggle is the streaming performance is at times sub par. While other streaming services continue to operate BB can be stubborn and jerky. Suspect bandwidth management is sub par, maybe teething issues.

  8. I have paid for a years subscription but have been pretty disappointed so far. Not by the content, as I haven’t managed to watch much, but by the connection. Mostly I just get the blue ring going round and round but sometimes it will make it to the main page, and then freeze up. It’s not my connection as I can immediately go from britbox to Netflix and that works perfectly. Is it just me that has this problem I wonder,

  9. Britbox has great potential but agree it must not be influenced by Foxtel contracts and needs some professional and snappy apps. Works quite nicely using a PC and web browser.

  10. Thomas Gilmore

    Great article. Good to know Corrie and EastEnders are not on BB in Australia. We have only kept Foxtel for these 2 shows for the wife. Don’t watch anything else. Have signed up for Binge and was pleasantly surprised they have a “Best of Brits” section which included Corrie, EastEnders and heaps of other great shows. Have now cancelled Foxtel (and I have been a subscriber since they launched in Australia.) Worth checking Binge out (and it is 20% the cost of Foxtel)

  11. Carol Raffaele

    I signed up for a free trial but wasn’t very impressed with the choice. Then today they sent me an email saying my first payment had been declined. So I called my bank and they said that BritBox had tried to take $899 instead of $8.99. So I emailed them, cancelling my subscription as I didn’t trust them having access to my account and got a reply saying that the problem was a ‘known issue’!! Unbelievable! Don’t trust this load of sharks.

  12. I have subscribed to Britbox and watched programs for 2 days on my Hisense smart tv and all was fine on the third day I tried to accessed the app but found it was not on the screen. Contacted Britbox and was told it was a Hisense problem. After much tooing and froing and several emails Britbox finally said they had pulled the App from my model Hisense tv but assured me their techs were working on it. That was September 28 2022.
    As of today 29th November this problem is not resolved.
    So if you have a Hisense smart tv I suggest you do some homework before you subscribe to this product.

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