The major TV channels in the UK frequently produce high-quality dramas, comedies, and thrillers. Unfortunately, only a small minority of British TV shows make it to American shores. However, thanks to two services—BritBox and Acorn TV—you can now get your hands on the best British television shows ever made.
Subscribing to both services might be overkill, so you need to know which is right for you. Which is the easiest to use? Which has the best selection of content? And, perhaps most importantly, which has the most content? In this article, we pit BritBox vs. Acorn TV to help you decide which streaming service to use.
BritBox vs. Acorn TV: Background and History
BritBox is a joint venture between the two largest networks in the UK: BBC and ITV. BritBox went live in March 2017, just three months after the two networks announced the project.
As Soumya Sriraman, BritBox president, told Fortune at the time:
“BBC and ITV are known for a vast array of diverse and award-winning programming that fans in the US love and want to watch. BritBox offers a single point of access to an extensive collection of outstanding British programming to discover and enjoy.”
Acorn TV has been around for longer, going live in 2013. RLJ Entertainment Inc. owns and operates the service. Interestingly, one of RLJ’s subsidiaries (Acorn Media Group) has been responsible for distributing UK content in the United States since the mid-1990s. It means the developers behind Acorn TV have a solid understanding of what American audiences enjoy watching.
BritBox vs. Acorn TV: Content Quality
Which of the two services has the best British TV content for you to dig into?
Acorn TV
Interestingly, Acorn TV doesn’t only specialize in UK shows. It also carries programming from Ireland, Canada, Australia, Spain, and New Zealand. The company has deals in place with some of the largest producers in those countries, including ITV, Channel 4, BBC Worldwide, All3Media, DRG, ZDF, and Content Media Corp.
The content offered can be broadly divided into six areas: mysteries, dramas, comedies, documentaries, feature films, and foreign-language shows. Some of the most famous shows from recent years are available, including Doc Martin, George Gently, Line of Duty, and Foyle’s War.
Away from well-known network shows, Acorn TV also makes some original content. Its most successful original show was an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Poirot in summer 2014. The show remains the only production by a niche streaming service to be nominated for an Emmy. Other original series include Agatha Raisin, Close to the Enemy, Agatha Raisin, and Manhunt.
Naturally, there’s also a bit of “padding”. We can’t imagine too many people tune into shows like Vintage Roads or The World’s Most Famous Train.
Lastly, Acorn TV also holds the rights to the US premieres of a number of shows, including the final episodes of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Partners in Crime, and The Witness for the Prosecution. If you want to be at the front of the queue for new episodes of these shows, Acorn TV is the answer.
BritBox
In one sense, BritBox has a narrower focus: it only carries content from the UK’s main over-the-air networks. That includes the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5.
On the other hand, those networks are responsible for the majority of quality programming in the UK, so you’re going to get the best of the best rather than a mix of quality output and unwatchable trash. Indeed, one of the claims that Britbox likes to tout is that its service offers the largest collection of British box-sets available in one place.
There are renowned soaps like EastEnders, crime thrillers like Silent Witness and Waking the Dead, long-running family series such as Casualty, and a whole range of famous comedies like The Office (the British version, naturally) and The Vicar of Dibley.
BritBox also excels in its selection of classic British comedies all Americans should watch. It carries shows like Porridge, Are You Being Served?, and Fawlty Towers, as well as more recent hits like Absolutely Fabulous and Keeping Up Appearances. The service does not provide any content from BBC America.
The company has confirmed that it will start offering more original content in 2020 and beyond.
BritBox vs. Acorn TV: Content Quantity
Does anyone @BritBox_US ? I love British detective/crime dramas. But I think I'm going to have to slow down on a few of my shows. A few days ago, I left my cell in another room. When it rang I thought "Oh my mobile is ringing" Then last night I dreamt in a British accent. ? ?
— AMERICAN MOM (@GOPAmericanMom) January 15, 2020
Quality and quantity are arguably the two most important metrics when you’re thinking about a streaming service. We’ve covered quality, so what about quantity? After all, you don’t want to run out of things to watch a few months after signing up.
At the time of writing, Acorn TV carries more than 250 different shows and movies. About a quarter of them are movies and there’s also a handful of foreign-language content, so you’ll have around 200 TV series to get stuck into.
Many older shows are represented in full. For example, the seven series of Men Behaving Badly are available, as are the nine series of Foyle’s War, and all 19 series of Midsomer Murders.
BritBox has a similar number of shows. The bulk of them fall under either the Drama or Comedy categories.
In short, both services will keep you fulfilled for a long time. It’s hard to accurately determine the number of hours of programming available, but they both run into several thousand.
Note: The number of shows on both services fluctuates slightly from month-to-month as new shows are added and old shows are removed.
BritBox vs. Acorn TV: User Interface and Experience
The last one of the three big deal-breakers when choosing which of these services are for you is the user interface. There’s no point in having thousands of hours of British shows available if you can’t quickly find what you want to watch when you want to watch it.
Of these two services, BritBox has the better UI. Acorn TV takes a “no-frills” approach. You’ll see all of the shows available in a grid. Clicking on a show will give you a brief snippet of information about the series and a link to a trailer (where appropriate).
You will find all of the seasons and individual episodes further down the page. They use an identical grid to the homepage. There is no further subdivision of the content.
BritBox feels more refined. Although it looks nothing like Netflix, it’s clearly taken pointers from the streaming behemoth. When browsing a particular category, you’ll find shows broken down into subcategories.
Some users have complained about unreliable search results on Britbox, but it doesn’t appear to be a universal issue.
Take a look at the comments further down the page for more users’ reviews. Suffice to say, there doesn’t appear to be a clear winner.
BritBox vs. Acorn TV: Device Support
Acorn TV is available in your browser, and there are standalone apps for both iOS and Android. It also works on three set-top boxes: Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV. It’s also one of the many apps that let you watch TV on a Chromecast.
BritBox is also available in your browser, on iOS and Android, and on Roku, Chromecast, and Apple TV.
BritBox vs. Acorn TV: Other Features
There are a couple of other features (or lack thereof) worth discussing.
Firstly, at the time of writing, neither service lets you download videos for offline watching. As such, you can’t rely on either service for long plane journeys or extended periods of time in other countries.
Secondly, neither service supports multiple user profiles. If you have lots of members in your household, you’ll all have to watch through the same portal. That means no personalized recommendations or other benefits that go hand-in-hand with multiple profiles.
On the plus side, both apps offer closed-caption subtitles on all of their shows.
BritBox vs. Acorn TV: Pricing and Costs
You might have started to realize there is very little between the two services. Neither is overly weak in any one area, and both boast several strong points.
As such, your decision may solely boil down to price. And in this arena, we have a clear winner.
BritBox will set you back $6.99/month, while Acorn TV only costs $4.99/month. Additionally, Acorn TV offers an annual subscription for $49.99/year, saving you 17 percent over 12 months. BritBox’s annual plan is $69.99.
BritBox vs. Acorn TV: Regional Availability
Acorn TV and BritBox are available in the United States. Britbox is also available in Canada and the UK, though the show line-up is not the same in each territory.
Additionally, Acorn TV is available in much of Latin America, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. You can also tune in from Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, and South Africa.
If you don’t live in a supported country, don’t panic. Neither company blocks traffic originating from VPNs, so if you have a subscription to a VPN provider, you will be able to circumnavigate the geo-blocking. A smart DNS provider will also work.
BritBox vs. Acorn TV: Which Should You Use?
In our opinion, BritBox is slightly better than Acorn TV. Yes, there are fewer shows and it costs slightly more, but the quality of the shows is higher and the website is much more enjoyable to use.
However, your personal TV preferences will determine much of your decision. If the shows you want to watch are only available on one of the two platforms, clearly it makes sense to subscribe to that service. If you’re not sure, sign up for a free trial. Both services will give you seven days with no obligation to continue beyond that.
For more great BBC shows, check out our articles revealing the best BBC documentaries on Netflix and the best BBC shows on Netflix.
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