WE’RE living in a golden age of telly. Shame no one told these five British streamers. Here they are ranked from ‘bad’ to ‘dreadful’:
BBC iPlayer
People may want to defund them, but the BBC has the least shit streaming service in the UK. With its sleek design and relatively simple navigation, the iPlayer skirts agonisingly close to competence. Yes, typing in the search function is so slow it makes you despair if you’re looking for anything longer than DIY SOS, but at least there are no ads.
All 4
Speaking of which, if you want to see 12 ads for cheesy takeaway pizzas immediately before a graphic episode of One Born Every Minute, look no further. Laid out in an impossible-to-navigate, never-ending grid, All 4 is the streaming equivalent of a maze. It also brags about being ‘the UK’s biggest free streaming service’ but fails to mention that’s only because it contains more than a thousand episodes of Come Dine With Me.
BritBox
This collaboration between the BBC and ITV makes for shitness squared and appeals only to the tiny Venn diagram crossover of weirdos who like both Footballers’ Wives and 80s-era Grange Hill. If you know someone who is convinced that British television was better when they were young, buy them a BritBox subscription and watch as their fanciful notions are crushed by nine series of Terry and June.
My5
Ever heard of My5? Probably not, but if you want to watch an advert every time you press pause or particularly enjoy looking at a buffering symbol, this is the streaming service for you. It’s also the only place you can catch Bargain-Loving Brits in the Sun, should your life ever become so bleak that you think it’s a good idea.
ITV Hub
At the very bottom of this sorry list is the woeful ITV Hub, which invites you to watch a solid 10 minutes of adverts just so you can access an episode of Doc Martin from 2006. It’s used only by ITV’s key demographic of retired gammons, and they already have every episode of Midsomer Murders on VHS anyway.
