BritBox: ‘Less than 5%’ of customer base are expats, reveals chief

Less than 5% of BritBox’s customer base are expats, according to an exec at the British content-themed streaming service. 

Kelly Ball (Source: BritBox)

Speaking at the OTT Question Time event in London. Kerry Ball, chief commercial & strategy officer for BritBox International said “when launching BritBox there was an assumption in the market we were a service for expats, yet less than 5% of of our base are expats.”

The SVOD platform launched in the US in 2016 as part of joint venture between BBC Worldwide and ITV, featuring programming from both UK broadcasters. The streamer later launched in the UK in 2019, and is also currently available in Australia, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and South Africa.

“It goes alongside with the fact that we’ve created this anomalous brand for BritBox being of quality. We have created an active base of users and consumers who are really passionate about the brand, that allows us to increase that penetration across those (audience) segments,” said the BritBox chief.

BritBox reported at the end of 2023 it had surpassed 3.4 million subscribers globally and recorded an increase of 15% in its membership since the start of last year.

The UK-centred streaming service showcases recent high-end originals and co-productions including Stonehouse, Time, Sherwood, Beyond Paradise, Payback and newly launched Archie.

“If you go back to that original concept of BritBox it was more than just archives it was about bringing high quality British content to another market,” Ball said. “What BritBox allowed our shareholders to do is create their own platform to showcase the deepsea of British content we have.”

Commenting on bundling, Ball praised telcos and cable networks in the US and Canada for “making big strides” in the market, however noted bundling could further to better target new subscribers.

She explained, “The widening needs to be bigger to enter into that world and I think there are many different services like ourselves that want operators to offer big streamers different opportunities by offering an add on which will target consumers that are very hard to find.”