November 20, 2025

Welcome back to Buffering, where we’re still not sure what is actually happening on Pluribus, and yet we’re loving every second of it. This week’s issue kicks off with some thoughts on the continuing drama that is the possible sale of Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon’s decision to launch AI recaps on Prime Video, as well as the news that former Paramount co-CEO Chris McCarthy has a new gig. But our main story is about a streamer that gets a lot of usage at Buffering HQ: BritBox. I talked to the platform’s president about how he’s adjusting now that the service is wholly owned by BBC Studios, the challenge of getting noticed when you’re not part of a bigger TV ecosystem, and the success of originals such as Blue Lights and Ludwig (two shows you need to watch ASAP).

As always, thanks for reading and here’s hoping you have a great Thanksgiving. We’ll be back after the holiday.

—Joe Adalian, Vulture's West Coast editor

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➼ D-Day at WBD: Today is apparently the soft deadline for companies who want to take over all or some of Warner Bros. Discovery to submit their bids outlining how much they’re willing to pay and how their takeover plan would work. As we’ve covered here before, Skydance-owned Paramount wants to gobble up WBD whole, while possible bidders Comcast and Netflix (the company that was calling itself a “builder, not a buyer” just a few months ago) are supposedly only interested in WBD’s studio holdings and HBO Max.

Here’s the thing: Whoever wins this process, Hollywood creators will almost surely lose. The only question is, which buyer is the least bad? I’m honestly not sure, but if I had to pick, I’d actually hope for Netflix. I actually think it would keep most of the HBO content team in place — including boss Casey Bloys — and let HBO get back to focusing on making shows that scream “It’s not TV, it’s HBO,” rather than trying to prop up HBO Max. (Maybe HBO’s digital home would be added as an extra tier to Netflix?) Plus, owning Warner Bros. would let Netflix experiment with making movies for theaters while its existing movies team keeps making streaming-first titles. 

➼ Yippee Ki-Yay, Chris McCarthy: Bloomberg reported this week that “the team behind the hit drama Yellowstone is reuniting” at NBCUniversal, but that’s … not quite right. Based on follow-up reports from multiple trades, former Paramount co-CEO Chris McCarthy does, indeed, appear to be in talks for a production deal that will have him produce shows for NBCUniversal and, perhaps more importantly, “help manage the company’s upcoming relationship with Taylor Sheridan, the creator of Yellowstone,” as Bloomberg wrote. But while McCarthy worked extensively (and tirelessly) to expand the number of Sheridan-created shows in existence, and thus helped ensure Paramount+ a steady supply of hits, he was not, in fact, responsible for putting Yellowstone on Paramount Network, or in turning the show into a hit. 

That would actually be the handiwork of veteran TV exec Keith Cox, who, as Deadline noted in August, “bought Yellowstone in the room from” Sheridan and partner David Glasser “and has remained a main liaison for them.” Cox — who also had a hand in launching the hits Younger and Emily in Paris (before it got sold off to Netflix) — believed in Yellowstone and Sheridan very early on, so much so that he gave the show a series commitment before a single frame of film had been shot. “Since we were just launching Paramount Network, we told him he could be the face of Paramount Network, and Yellowstone could be the defining show,” Cox said in 2022. “I told Taylor, ‘You're not leaving until you sell us this.’ Then I turned to David and I said, ‘Please make this happen.’ David winked at me and said, ‘I got you.’ The rest is history.” 

Of course, in Hollywood, money often trumps history, and while Yellowstone was already a hit when McCarthy took control of Paramount Network from Cox, he is the exec who made Sheridan extraordinarily wealthy by signing him to a massive production deal after the show had proven its worth. Now Sheridan seems to be returning the favor. 

➼ AI, AI, AI: In the latest example of giant companies looking for ways to justify their massive spending on AI technology, Amazon-owned Prime Video this week said it was rolling out AI-generated video recaps on select shows. You’ll apparently be able to get the same sort of “Previously on …” summaries that networks and streamers have been doing for years using human editors, but now they’ll be created by a machine and feature a robot voice instead of a human narrator. This is progress?

Here’s how BritBox forged a “profitable, enduring” bond with its audience — without leaning on hits. (Pictured: Ludwig, Belgravia.) Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo: Eric McCandless/Disney

Thanks to streaming, it’s never been easier for Anglophiles in America to get their fix of British television — nor, arguably, has content from across the pond ever been so popular. “If you ask any person with taste what television shows they've watched in the past couple years, you're going to hear about Adolescence and Baby Reindeer and Slow Horses and Black Doves and The Crown,” says BritBox president Robert Schildhouse, who has no problem touting made-in-U.K. hits from much bigger platforms like Netflix and Apple TV. While those shows might not appear on his BBC Studios–owned streamer, their success — along with PBS’s 2011 U.S. launch of Downton Abbey — has helped obliterate old stereotypes about British TV being too stuffy or niche to break through with mainstream audiences. “The marketplace,” Schildhouse says, “has helped us show future subscribers that British television is just great television.” 

And so even if the majority of folks who fall in love with a Bridgerton or Department Q will be satisfied by the handful of British shows the Netflix algorithm serves them next, for some, those big hits can also act as a gateway drug of sorts, leading them to realize they don’t have to be afraid of British accents or frilly period costumes. That’s where Schildhouse and the BritBox team see an opportunity. “We are very confident that once they give us a try, they're going to find a lot of things that they're going to love,” he says. 

Of course, even with all the heat Brit hits on bigger streamers generate, getting folks to check out a niche platform remains a challenge, particularly as price hikes across streaming (and inflation in general) make consumers audit their entertainment budgets. BritBox, which has been around since 2017 and boasted just over 4 million subscribers as of March, also has to keep an eye on rivals like Acorn TV and MHz Choice, which, while not focused exclusively on U.K. programming, still cater to viewers who want to add some European flavor to their streaming diets. Toward that end, Schildhouse has been focused on identifying projects that can generate buzz beyond the streamer’s base of somewhat older female viewers — like the BAFTA-winning Blue Lights, a gritty cop drama inspired by The Wire and set in Northern Ireland. The show began its third season on BritBox last week and has already been renewed for a fourth in both the U.K. and the U.S. 

In order to generate sampling for swings like Blue Lights, Schildhouse struck a deal with HBO Max last summer to put the first two seasons of the show on the Warner Bros. Discovery streamer for two months, including it as part of a curated collection of 15 BritBox shows with crossover appeal. And next month, in a deal that has not previously been revealed, BritBox will launch a new bundle with Hallmark+, allowing Prime Video customers to subscribe to both services for $13.99 per month, a 30 percent discount off their standalone price. With both arrangements, “We’re trying to lower that barrier to entry,” Schildhouse says, explaining that getting consumers into an ecosystem is often the most difficult challenge a smaller streamer such as BritBox faces. “There really is no better way to understand what British television is than by putting it in front of them.”

BritBox has been around for almost a decade now, but there’s been a lot of change behind the scenes recently. Most notably, you’re now wholly owned by BBC Studios rather than having custody split between them and ITV. Has it made much of a difference in the platform’s mission or how you run things day-to-day?
Not nearly as much as you would think. I told the team this when it happened that if you look at how this could have played out, I believed that BBC would be the best home for BritBox. Eighteen months in, I still believe that to be true. We have the support and the relationships within the company, and for anybody doing business in British television, being able to get anyone from the BBC on the phone at any time is a great outcome. 

But in the way that we run the business, we've remained largely autonomous within the BBC Studios ecosystem. We do business with everyone. And we still have a long-term content relationship with ITV. The first show that we acquired after the acquisition was from ITV Studios —  Ludwig. It airs on the BBC in the U.K., but Big Talk, which is the production company, is owned by ITV Studios.  

So it would be wrong to think of BritBox as just a de facto buyer for BBC content in the U.S.? Someone in London isn’t telling you, “Okay, we need you to license this show for BritBox”? 
We have no obligation to buy anything from BBC Studios. The remit here is to buy the best programming in the marketplace and grow a successful streaming service that brings great British programming to American audiences. It just so happens that there's great British television, as you would expect, being produced by BBC Studios. But I have no obligation: We say no to BBC Studios on occasion. We say no to ITV Studios. I feel zero pressure to support any show that doesn't fit with how we intend to entertain our audiences.   

How early on does BritBox get involved with projects? Is it after a show has already been fully developed and cast, or is it when something is still just a pitch? We look at shows across the entire spectrum, including taking pitches at the ideas stage. So for example, we developed Ludwig at BritBox. We've been involved in that show since 2021. We've got extensive producer relationships in the U.K. It’s been reported that we are one of, if not the, most active co-production partners of U.K. television, period. And so we have a lot of people coming to us, and we see submissions from basically everyone making television in the U.K. marketplace. 

The most common situation, though, is if a show is being taken to the market that we just absolutely love and it has a commission by a U.K. broadcaster — but it won't get made without someone like us coming in and playing that co-producer role. And that's because, frankly, there just isn't the risk-taking happening in this market that there once was. Once upon a time, if you had a commission at the BBC or at ITV, your show was getting made. That's just simply not the case anymore. So there are circumstances where we love a show, and if we don't come in at a co-production capacity, the show just isn't going to get made. But the table stakes are: It's a show that has to be on BritBox. If we've decided that a show really belongs on the service, then we can entertain the idea of coming in and helping to bridge the financing gap. 

“We aren’t in the hits business,” says BritBox president Robert Schildhouse. “We’re curators.”

What “really belongs” on BritBox? Are there any common denominators involved, beyond being British?
As the British would say, “We say what we are on the tin.” We are BritBox: There's really no other streaming service that is as obvious with what you're going to find once you step inside. We exclusively, or nearly exclusively, source our programming from the U.K. But we're not looking to be in every genre across the British landscape. The British make sci-fi, they make thrillers, they make comedy. Those are areas where we don't spend a lot of time. 

We affectionately call the central lanes where we believe we have an advantage “crime and corsets.” Crime, with mystery sort of sitting in the middle of that. If you think about the British mystery, and murder mystery, that is a uniquely British take. It's something that they do better than anyone else — Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes. We see crime as an adjacency to that, so something like Blue Lights goes into that category, too. And then period dramas. There's a very strong association with “period drama” and “British” with American audiences. Downton Abbey broke through the popular Zeitgeist with modern American audiences. So those are the areas where we spend most of our attention. 

But you do sometimes veer outside those lanes? 
We occasionally have some shows that live slightly outside of those specific genres, like Riot Women, which is Sally Wainwright's next show. We're trying to create accessible on-ramps for people who wouldn't necessarily self-identify as a fan of British television. We're in the same business as every other streamer, where we’re trying to earn our right into  your living room. If you are a fan of British television or you're an Anglophile, you know what BritBox is already. But if you aren’t, we’ve got to put some shows out there that make it very easy to give us a try. And then once you step in the front door, our job is to show you the canon of British television, immerse you in the 8,000 hours of programming that we have, and show you why we deserve to be part of your streaming diet.  

What is the demographic profile of the typical BritBox subscriber?
It's a little bit older, and it's a little bit female-skewing. But we have audiences across the spectrum that love British television. 

Has that changed as you've slowly gotten bigger? And is your goal now to keep broadening out beyond your core demo? Or is there a risk of watering down your brand?
We're always going to try to expand our demographic, but I think the difference that you'll see with us, as opposed to the general entertainment market, is we know who our audience is, and we draw very deliberate, tight, concentric circles around that audience, and grow in that way. We're absolutely not trying to be something for everyone. That has never been the strategy of this business. Of course, we'd like to bring more people in. But we're doing that in a way that's very careful so that we can continue to service our existing audience while giving new audiences what I call a very clear, well-lit path back to the broader proposition. 

Blue Lights.

In other words, it’s great when a show like Blue Lights gets a ton of attention and presumably viewers, but you’re not hitching yourself to a couple of big breakout successes. 
We aren't in the hits business. Yes, we have some noisy shows every once in a while, which gives us an opportunity to talk to a broader potential audience. But our value proposition is, we're curators. We're going to give audiences programming that they're going to love, whether they know what that is or not. The metric that I talk about all the time is that over 50 percent of our subscriber base among people who watch on our own app is on annual plans. So, they're not just showing up for one show and leaving. They trust us. We don't see that same sort of spikiness in our churn rates because our audience tends to stay with us for a very long time. We're in the retention business as much as we're in the acquisition business. 

If you don’t want to widen out your context mix too much in order to bring in newer or younger audiences, what have you been doing to expand your base?
We launched a new ad campaign called “See It Differently.” It was a 14-hour time lapse of a younger woman basically being transformed into characters of several BritBox-like shows. And the data that we got back from that in terms of awareness-building from younger audiences was extraordinary. Part of our challenge is just making sure people know that we even exist in order to give us a try. And that campaign did great work for us, and we're super proud of it. 

But we have to make 100 percent of our own noise. If you think about all the general entertainment streamers, excluding Netflix, they're all attached to ecosystems, whether it's linear networks or, in Amazon's case, everybody's favorite place to shop. Even other folks who are in the specialty world, like there are linear networks that can promote the brands. So we have to be extremely deliberate about where we point our resources in order to reach new audiences and introduce them to BritBox.  

Does a show like Blue Lights also help broaden the appeal?
Yeah, absolutely. Blue Lights was one of our top shows last year. It won the BAFTA, so it's been recognized in the U.K. as their top drama. Season three in the U.K. has done extremely well, so we’re very excited about what it will do for our audience. With shows like Blue Lights, we're investing for the long term. We want to create brands that our audience expects are going to come back at a regular cadence on our service, and Blue Lights fits that bill. And I think Blue Lights gives us an opportunity to speak to more of a male demographic, maybe a slightly younger audience. It was part of the sampling that we did with HBO Max, and it was the number-one show that the HBO Max subscribers watched of our offering. We believe in this show, and it's a franchise that we are leaning into in a big way. 

I was going to ask you about the HBO Max arrangement. Why did you make that deal?
It's mostly about promotion. In the U.K., they know all of the best American television shows, and they have forever. They've been available there, certainly with streaming. But there is no mechanism for U.K. television to have resonance in American audiences. The jet stream doesn't flow in that direction. So we end up being the principal conduit for British television to come to American audiences. Putting our programming next to the best television shows from HBO Max allows users to see our programming in that environment. 

Were you happy with the results? 
In our new user surveys, we ask people, “How do you know about BritBox?” And a significant number of subscribers told us that they discovered BritBox through HBO Max. So, mission accomplished. They came back to us because they wanted more. What we're trying to do is to lower that barrier to entry.

You’re also getting ready to test out a new bundled offering with Hallmark+. On the one hand, it might seem like a mismatch, but you both have a somewhat older and more female demographic skew. And their platform also makes a fair share of cozy mysteries and even some period pieces. What was the thinking behind teaming up?
We see maybe a common customer set and a common opportunity. It goes without saying that Hallmark is a specialist in holiday films, and they see a lot of attention during that time of year. And as I'm out in the market talking to all the other streaming services, one of the things that I always note is, we're an antidote for churn. We may not help somebody like HBO Max or even Hallmark on brand awareness, but what we can help with is keeping audiences around. There was a very interesting opportunity to do a test with Hallmark during their busiest time of year and then hopefully keep that audience around in that bundle for as long as possible. We have a common interest in growing and retaining audiences with a demographic that probably looks pretty similar, and we thought it was worth giving it a try. 

Could you see trying more bundles? I think there’d be a ton of logic behind one with BritBox, Acorn TV, and PBS Masterpiece, for instance.
I would say we have a very healthy relationship with all other streamers, including the ones you mentioned, and we have active conversations about ways that we can work with each other in the future. 

Earlier this year you also introduced BritBox Premier, which is a new tier that gives subscribers access to a library of BBC Select nonfiction shows focused on history, science, food and travel, as well as some other benefits like early access to full seasons. All of Blue Lights season three is already available to binge on Premier, for example. How’s it going so far, and why did you decide to offer a new level of service?
It's going extremely well. The market has already validated to us that we're on to something. And that something is, how do we bring more value to our audiences? How do we give them more of what they love? The primary lever that other services, including ours, have been using to grow revenue per user, or ARPU, is raising price. And I think as consumers, we've seen this probably in every service multiple times in the past few years, and it's getting to the point where we're a little numb to it. But it's also, frankly, just getting expensive across the board. The challenge that we gave ourselves was, how can we increase ARPU through good news, not just bad news.

I’m guessing the “bad news” here is telling subscribers you’re raising prices, and—
The good news meaning, “Hey, if you're really into this stuff and you want to get access to content earlier, or maybe there's some programming that you otherwise would be subscribing to another service for, in this case BBC Select, we can include that.” Or, “If you want to watch it in 4K, or you want multiple concurrent streams, why don't we give you that opportunity?” So we made it an annual plan, since these are subscribers who have already demonstrated their very strong affinity for what we do. We're a few months into it, and the numbers are already significantly exceeding our expectations. About half of our Premier subscribers are existing annual plan subscribers that have upgraded, which means we're actually seeing a lot of new subscribers that are coming to BritBox for the very first time who are jumping straight into Premier. 

Will Premier evolve over time and add more features or content?
What we'd love to do is make that tier of service something that feels more like a membership tier than purely a transactional relationship with a streaming service. 

I wanted to ask you about scheduling. Oftentimes, something will air on BBC or ITV months before it lands on your service. Wouldn’t it make sense to take advantage of the news coverage and social buzz for bigger shows like Ludwig or Blue Lights by premiering episodes much closer to when they launch in Britain? It might even cut down on hardcore Anglophiles who turn to pirating them because they don’t want to wait.
So first, and very fortunately, piracy is not a huge issue for our programming. The real answer here is that we're programming for a BritBox audience. We have to think about a scheduling cadence that ensures that every time people come to BritBox, there's something new and fresh and exciting for them to watch. And we put a great deal of care into that curation over the course of a year so that people don’t feel like there’s a bunch of shows that show up in one particular month or quarter, and then a dearth of shows in some other period. We aren't mirroring the schedules of the BBC or ITV. Our job is to make sure that we set up that rhythm in such a way that audiences expect something new is coming every time that they come onto BritBox.  

You made it clear that sci-fi is not a lane for BritBox, but Disney just ended its distribution deal for Doctor Who. Given it’s one of the BBC’s most iconic shows, I have to ask if you see any chance it might end up on your platform if a big player like Netflix doesn’t swoop in?
It's not a conversation that I'm in right now. But we are working with Bad Wolf, which produces Doctor Who, on a program we're super excited about called The Other Bennet Sister. That's the story of Mary Bennet, who's sort of the forgotten Bennet sister, within Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. So we're delighted to bring our audience into the Austen-verse, which seems to be much more aligned with our content strategy than maybe Doctor Who would appear. But nothing's ever off the table. 

I want to wrap things up by getting your take on where things stand in the streaming world right now. It’s been a tough couple of years for anyone not named Netflix as the business pivots off the frenzy we saw about a decade ago. As a smaller platform, are you feeling more hopeful or more stressed these days?
The reality is I never come to work every day thinking I'm at war. I come to work every day thinking about our audience and how to delight them. And I think what's been proven out is that you can create an identity and develop a relationship with an audience and build an amazing, profitable, enduring business despite all the noise and the LinkedIn posts and the articles written about the devastation in streaming, and who's winning and who's losing. We can be incredibly deliberate in our growth strategy and be very profitable and not have to try to be something for everyone, not have to grow beyond our means, not have to take enormous ris