‘Vast majority’ of British shows will be removed from Netflix within next year

Exclusive: BBC and ITV series to ‘come back home’ to Britbox – including ‘The Office’, which is expected to leave Netflix next spring

The “vast majority” of British shows will be removed from Netflix within the next year, a Britbox spokesperson has revealed.

Britbox, which launched in the UK today (7 November), is a brand new streaming service from the BBC and ITV to rival Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV+.

The new platform, which promises to have the largest collection of British TV content ever assembled on a single website, is bringing BBC and ITV shows such as The Office “back home”.

This means thousands of hours of British content will disappear from Netflix.

ITV group communications and corporate affairs director Paul Moore told The Independent: “The vast majority of British shows will no longer be on Netflix within the next year.”

Moore explained that most BBC and ITV shows that have been licensed to Netflix and Amazon are on 12-month rolling contracts. When those contracts run out, the shows will move to Britbox.

The Office, for example, “will be coming back home next spring”.

Shows that were a co-production between UK networks and Netflix or Amazon, such as Bodyguard, “can’t come back home”, according to Moore, who added that “going forward, we won’t license things to Netflix and Amazon in the first place because we now have a home, a streaming service in the UK”.

Moore revealed that the BBC and ITV have “already been quietly” taking shows back from Netflix “for the last few months”, which is why shows such as Gavin & Stacey and Love Island have been taken off the global streaming site.

A Netflix source confirmed to The Independent that shows would only leave the platform when their licensing agreements come to an end, and these vary with time.

While Britbox is on a mission to reclaim British content, it will not be competing to acquire the rights to US or international shows as its focus is purely on UK-produced series.

To find out what TV shows and films are available on Britbox, check out our guide.