BBC Worldwide CEO Tim Davie confirmed that the company would launch a pay-to-own VoD service in the UK in 2015.
Speaking at IBC’s keynote session ‘Realities of transformation: how BBC Worldwide is adapting to a new world’, chaired by media commentator and IBC Daily journalist Kate Bulkley, he admitted that the service would not be ready by the end of the year.
“We need to get it perfect, we want to deliver iPlayer functionality,” he indicated, adding that BBC Worldwide had no plans to launch a subscription-based service on the Netflix model. “You look at all the options and choose the right one,” he said.
Such a service could also be introduced in other markets, for instance in Asia. “It is a new frontier for a lot broadcasters but we are going to get in there, we are going to play,” he warned.
Asked whether AMC networks was about to buy a 50% stake in BBC America, as some press reports have recently indicated, he admitted that one of the challenges faced by the channel was to remain independent in a market where consolidation was fast
