The Ripper Street deal marks the first significant change in British free to view television and with the planned changes to BBC3, it's clear the television industry is changing. But how fast will this change occur and what if the impact of Ripper Streets revival is much less immediately noticeable than the hype suggests? The Ripper Street announcement was nicely timed with the launch of Amazon Prime Video formerly LoveFilm and may not be a robust indicator of how Amazon intends to do business in future. Ripper Street might have set a precedent in the UK but even in the US, the resurrection of cancelled TV shows is not a frequent event. Yet, as streaming services pursue the development of more original shows in an effort to emulate the big cable channels like HBO and lure in new subscribers, their relationship with traditional network and free to view channels is brought into sharp focus. With X-Box now entering the fray too, time can only tell what will happen next. What would you like the biggest impact of Amazon Instant Videos first UK acquisition to be? Will we see more collaborative funding efforts between subscriber services and terrestrial channels in the future? And is this for the better or worse?
A freelance features writer and online film critic, Natalie idolises screen writers from Terrence Winter to Larry David and Wes Anderson. Her favourite movies include Beasts Of The Southern Wild, 21 Grams and Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, while her guilty pleasures range from nineties teen flick Clueless to Jurassic Park and pre-Darcy, Colin Firth movie, Valmont. Please don't judge.
Natalie is currently enjoying television's renaissance in Boardwalk Empire, True Detective, The Newsroom and Veep but still has a soft spot for The X-Files and Seinfeld.
