Channel 4, ITV, Sky urge BBC to pull back from international acquisitions
US drama Snowfall is popular on the BBC’s iPlayer
UK broadcasters Channel 4 (C4), ITV and Sky have urged public broadcaster the BBC to reduce the number of international acquisitions it makes in order to maintain its core focus on UK programming, leaving attractive finished shows from outside the UK for its commercial counterparts.
The call came from separate statements of written evidence C4, ITV and Sky submitted to Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee, as part of its inquiry on the BBC Royal Charter Review.
C4, which is also a public service broadcaster, said it believes the BBC “remains central to the success of the UK’s public service media system” and “should be clearly focused on distinctive public value, including UK-originated content, creative risk-taking and genres or services that are less likely to be provided at scale by the market alone.”
The next charter, in C4’s view, should “reinforce a clear expectation that the BBC must prioritise underserved genres and areas where commercial incentives are weaker, including children’s content, local news and other forms of distinctive British programming.”
“This also means prioritising UK-originated content over acquired finished programming – particularly acquisitions from US studios where market demand is already high,” C4 said.
In Sky’s statement, the pay outfit said the BBC should focus on commissioning and producing “distinctive UK content rather than technology development or large-scale acquisition of third-party content.”
It added that the charter should prevent the BBC’s streaming platform, iPlayer, from “evolving into an aggregation platform for third-party content.”
Commercial broadcaster ITV, meanwhile, said the BBC’s “substantial and consistent investment as a major commissioner of original content serves as a critical engine for the broader UK creative economy.”
As a result, ITV believes it is “incumbent on the BBC to use its public funding to commission and acquire UK originated content and in future to radically reduce the current spend on foreign (mainly US) acquisitions.”
Citing data from regulator Ofcom, ITV said the BBC’s spending on foreign content made up 4.8% of its total acquisitions spend in 2024/25, reducing the number of programmes available for commercial broadcasters who then struggle to compete. It added the 4.8% represents nearly £87m (US$117m), approaching £1bn over a 10-year charter period.
Australian comedy Colin From Accounts, US drama Snowfall and US gothic horror Interview with the Vampire are among the most popular recent international acquisitions on iPlayer.
“We can see no reason for the BBC to use public funds to compete for content that would otherwise find a home on free-to-access commercial services, and the loss of which makes it harder for those services to compete with the publicly funded iPlayer,” ITV said.
The charter review comes as the BBC rethinks its funding structure and the future of the licence fee comes under scrutiny. Commenting on this, C4, Sky and ITV each argued against the pubcaster moving to an ad-funded model.
This would divert revenue from commercial broadcasters who are already struggling with a drop in advertising, ITV said, noting that it would also change the BBC’s incentives by “pushing it towards more commercially attractive audiences and away from distinctive public service delivery.”
Sky also rejected the notion of the BBC transitioning to a subscription model, while C4 said “proposals that place parts of its services behind subscription paywalls should be approached with caution,” noting that it would harm households without “streaming-quality internet provision” and create a “two-tier system that is difficult to reconcile with the BBC’s core public purpose of remaining accessible to all.”
Instead, C4 said the BBC’s existing commercial operations, such as BBC Studios, and the monetisation of BBC-branded content internationally on YouTube could be “further supported to increase the supplementary revenue delivered to fund the BBC’s public service output.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “We are the largest commissioner of originated programmes in the UK. Our spend on acquisitions remains very small at less than 5% of our overall content budget, far less compared with other broadcasters. Acquisitions are a cost-effective way of delivering high-quality content to audiences who then go on to discover original, homegrown programming on BBC iPlayer.”
