BritBox UK streaming service opens its doors with Channel 4 on board

(Image credit: BritBox)

BritBox, the long-awaited UK TV streaming service, has finally opened its servers for business and it's saved a little surprise for the big day.

The BBC/ITV collaboration has signed a three-year partnership with Channel 4, which brings thousands of hours of TV shows and films from All 4 and Film4 to BritBox, all available from 2020.

There are also BritBox partnerships for both BT and EE for distribution of the streaming service across their pre-existing mobile and TV platforms.

You can sign up to BritBox now on the BritBox website. Registration comes with a 30-day free trial of the service, with subscription then costing £5.99 per month. With that you get HD programming and access to the biggest collection of British boxsets available on any video streaming service.

What is BritBox? The new BBC and ITV streaming service explained

A BritBox subscription means access to the service on multiple devices from a single account via the likes of dedicated apps on iOS and Android, plus Apple TV. Samsung's will be the first smart TVs with a built-in BritBox app. Support for Freeview Play, YouView and sets from other manufacturers will come in 2020.

Content on BritBox at launch will include Downton Abbey, Broadchurch, Gavin & Stacey, Love Island and all 627 episodes of Classic Doctor Who. There are also exclusives such as drama Lambs Of God and some titles - A Confession and Manhunt from ITV, for example - that will be exclusive to BritBox once their window on catch-up services finishes.

EE and BT are set to reveal the full details on their BritBox products and bundles in the coming months.

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Dan is a staff writer at What Hi-Fi? and his job is with product reviews as well as news, feature and advice articles too. He works across both the hi-fi and AV parts of the site and magazine and has a particular interest in home cinema. Dan joined What Hi-Fi? in 2019 and has worked in tech journalism for over a decade, writing for Tech Digest, Pocket-lint, MSN Tech and Wareable as well as freelancing for T3, Metro and the Independent. Dan has a keen interest in playing and watching football. He has also written about it for the Observer and FourFourTwo and ghost authored John Toshack's autobiography, Toshack's Way.