How many iterations of this general idea have been around now?

You’ve obviously got the individual platforms the channels own, but then we’ve had things like britbox, youview, the various Freeview continuation brands.

Whenever they do something like this it seems to always get hamstrung by some strange limitation they impose on themselves.

Disney pretty much demonstrated the way to do this as a newcomer to the area, but with a decent back catalogue: Bring it out on as many platforms as possible, yes, including standard web and more than one kind of smart TV, no, don’t require some weird propriety hardware. Put as much content as possible on there from day one, and then keep adding new unique content on there that people actually care about, not just some random niche comedy.

Oh and if they’re doing the free ad supported thing (will be interesting given the BBC content) they need to not immediately forget what they’ve learned independently on their own services—people hate ads, so make sure there’s a way to pay to not see them.

Between all of them there’s a diverse and deep selection of content, following that obvious plan and coupled with there being a free tier from day one, I can’t see how they can cock this one up.

They will, they always do, but I just can’t see how this time