The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is in the process of rolling out an online version of its 24-hour news channel that will be distributed via YouTube in a handful of countries, according to a report published this week.
The report, from Deadline Hollywood, said the news stream will be the same as the 24-hour channel that viewers outside the United Kingdom can already watch on satellite and pay television platforms.
The YouTube feed will be available in countries where the BBC does not already have a commercial distribution partnership for its news content, Deadline reported. That includes Australia, where some of the channel’s programming has been offered by domestic public service broadcasters.
The YouTube stream is unlikely to launch in the United States, where the BBC’s commercial arm has a long-term licensing agreement with AMC Global Media to offer BBC News. Stateside, BBC News converted from a pay television channel to a free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) network two years ago, and the feed is widely available on no-cost services like Paramount’s Pluto TV, Comcast and Charter’s Xumo TV and the news app Local Now. AMC Global Media would be responsible for any distribution of BBC News feeds on YouTube in the U.S., should that come to pass.
YouTube has become an important pipeline for public service broadcasters in the United Kingdom at a time when more British TV viewers are adopting a mixture of traditional and streaming TV platforms for their entertainment and informational needs.
Earlier this year, the BBC signed a landmark, multi-year licensing deal with YouTube to bring more of its TV content to the platform — both clips and long-form shows and documentaries — through the launch of more than four dozen new YouTube channels.
Most of those channels offer content without advertisements, as the BBC is funded by a domestic tax charged to households with TV sets. But distribution on YouTube and other platforms could wind up playing a central role in how the BBC funds itself when its current funding charter, which is tied to the domestic TV tax, expires at the end of next year.
British government officials have repeatedly referred to the TV tax — known as a license — as untenable over the long-term as more viewers pay for an use foreign-owned streaming services like Netflix, Disney Plus and Amazon’s Prime Video. Partial funding through a mixture of commercial-free and ad-supported distribution — the latter of which would involve YouTube — have been considered as one way to help the BBC financially support itself from 2028 onward.
