BritBox is an online digital video subscription service, operating as a joint venture of the BBC and ITV plc, serving the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia, with an upcoming launch in South Africa. It is focused on British television series and films, mainly featuring current and past series and films supplied from the main UK public service broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5), in addition to original programming. BritBox is said to feature the biggest collection of British box sets available in one place, with additional original programming available from 2020. BritBox’s focus on British content has led to the service being described as a ‘niche streaming service’ in the US.

BritBox’s launch in the United States was announced in December 2016, with it launching on 7 March 2017. It launched in Canada on 14 February 2018 and proposals for a UK launch were finalised on 27 February 2019, with the service launching in the United Kingdom on 7 November 2019. A launch in Australia was announced on 5 March 2020, with the service launching on 23 November 2020. A South African launch was announced on 16 February 2021, with the launch date set for 6 August 2021. The service in the UK and the international services are operated differently, and host differing content, including BritBox UK’s exclusive original content. There are content restrictions between each platform, leading some content to be available on one platform and unavailable on another.

BritBox provides new episodes to British soaps and dramas such as EastEnders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks, within hours of their UK broadcast via BritBox’s ‘Now’ feature to US and Canadian users, but also includes extensive archives of older programming, such as the popular Doctor Who classic series on the service. It reported a subscriber base of 250,000 within a year since launching in the US. In 2019, 650,000 subscribers were reported from the North American platform. In early 2020, the number of US and Canadian subscribers surpassed 1 million users, to around 1.2 million by August, and 1.5 million by October, following strong growth in the North American service due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 9 March 2021, it was reported that the UK service had surpassed 500,000 subscribers, meeting BritBox’s UK target. Will Harrison, BritBox UK’s managing director told members of the UK Broadcasting Press Guild that BritBox was “very happy” at how the service had performed since its November 2019 launch.