Clarkson's Britflix Plan: Why He Says British TV Must Join Forces
Jeremy Clarkson called for the BBC, ITV, Sky, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to merge into a single “Britflix” platform to survive, speaking at the RTS London convention on 29 September 2026. The Guardian
He said competition from streamers and YouTube means Britain’s broadcasters should make “bigger, fewer, better programmes” rather than compete separately for scale and attention. Scale here means audience size and spending power. He named all five main home broadcasters as part of the plan.
He also addressed the BBC’s funding and structure. Clarkson said BBC News should be separated and paid for through the licence fee, the annual household payment that funds the BBC. That followed his call in January for the BBC to scrap the licence fee. The Sun
The remarks came with two other developments in the same convention coverage. Sky has announced a £1.6bn deal to buy ITV’s broadcasting and streaming arm. Channel 4 has announced plans to cut 340 jobs before the end of the year. Both were cited as signs of pressure on domestic linear TV, the traditional scheduled channels, and streaming operations.
Clarkson spoke as a former Top Gear and Grand Tour host who now works mainly in streaming. He said he had just finished filming the sixth season of Clarkson’s Farm for Amazon Prime. He is also working on a new show described as “unbelievably ambitious.” Deadline
The broader context here is consolidation as a response to fragmentation. A single home platform would pool commissioning budgets, the money used to order new shows, plus technology costs and rights libraries. It would also bring together very different ownership models, funding systems and public-service duties.
Looking at what this means for commissioning, the case for fewer, larger bets will be familiar to people close to the market. Streamers and YouTube have changed viewing habits and cost expectations. Fewer shows with higher spending per hour can sell better abroad. They can also leave less space for risk, regional suppliers and the mid-range factual and entertainment shows British broadcasters have long supported.
In my view, the proposal raises as many structural questions as it answers. Mixing licence-fee-funded news with advertising-funded and subscription-funded entertainment would need agreement on control, competition rules and editorial independence. Keeping BBC News as a separately funded unit shows that tension. It keeps the idea of news paid for by everyone while letting entertainment chase commercial size.
Looking ahead, whether change comes as the full merger Clarkson described or through smaller deals and cuts is still an open question for executives and policymakers. The Sky-ITV deal and the Channel 4 cuts point toward fewer owners and smaller teams. A full five-way merger would be a political task as well as a business one.
