The BBC director general, Tony Hall, has mocked the size of Netflix’s viewing figures, claiming only seven million Britons watched The Crown despite the enormous media buzz around the big-budget show.
The BBC boss said high-profile dramas such as Luther and Bodyguard reached larger audiences with a smaller budget on the public broadcaster than expensive Netflix shows.
“I mentioned the Bodyguard finale reaching 17 million viewers,” he told a media conference in London. “That was in one month. Our data suggests The Crown reached seven million users in 17 months.”
Netflix is infamous for never revealing the number of people who view any of its shows, leaving industry rivals and the media to fill in the blanks. This approach means the streaming service does not have to admit which of its shows are critical hits but flop with audiences, while also avoiding direct comparisons between the popularity of its shows and the audiences for programmes on traditional channels.
A BBC spokesperson said Hall’s source for the viewing figures was a nationally representative survey commissioned by the corporation last year, which asked Britons whether they had watched at least 15 minutes of an episode of The Crown. Netflix declined to comment on the figures.
The Crown, which is following the reign of the Queen from her early years to the present day, is scheduled to last six series at a rumoured cost of £100m. The drama, created by Peter Morgan, has been a major critical hit around the world and has been seen as indicative of a media environment where leading British television talent choose to work for streaming services on bigger budgets rather than produce material for domestic broadcasters.
Hall’s aggressive stance towards Netflix came as he urged the BBC to improve its online offering and prepare for an era where many licence fee payers never watch live television channels.
He said the BBC and other public service broadcasters provided distinctive British content that Netflix and Amazon never would be willing to produce. However, he argued that traditional broadcasters are being held back by tough media regulation which did not apply to rival online video operations.
“The landscape in which we operate has changed beyond all recognition over the past decade. But our regulation has stayed largely the same,” he said.
Hall said the BBC’s entire annual spent on television content is around £1.5bn across a whole year, leaving it struggling to compete: “Analysts estimate that Netflix spent as much as $13bn on movies and shows last year. Amazon has a content spend of around $5bn. They’re reportedly setting aside a reported $1n for five seasons of a Lord of the Rings series. Disney has a $100m budget for a single series of Star Wars.”
Hall also defended plans to put BBC content on a new paid-for BritBox streaming service after it has finished on iPlayer, which will be charged in addition to the £154.50 a year for the licence fee. He said this was the modern equivalent of paying “a bit extra” for a DVD of a BBC show once it has come off air.
Alex Mahon, Channel 4 chief executive, told the event that she expected her channel to join ITV and the BBC as part of the BritBox project in due course.
