Acorn TV vs BritBox in Australia: Which should you choose?

Every day it seems like more and more streaming TV options become available for trial at your disposal. One day you’re wondering whether your current streaming subscriptions are good enough or not, the next you’ll be curious to explore other less known selections that are offering some unique content.

If that weren’t enough, there are also niche streaming services like BritBox and Acorn TV that are competing to offer the best selection of British shows. And in Australia, there’s a high demand for British telly. 

Acorn TV and BritBox are two of the biggest streaming services that have distributed British television shows in Australia. Today we shall look closely at BritBox and AcornTV, on what will be the best pick you can make to watch the latest and classic British TV shows.

To help you choose between Acorn TV and BritBox for some excellent British TV streaming in Australia, we’ve put up a guide on everything you need to know about these two streaming services.

Acorn TV vs BritBox Australia overview

Before we start to compare these two British content streaming platforms, let us take a quick look at them.

Acorn TV is a standalone streaming service that launched in the US in 2013 and expanded to the UK in 2020. It features a variety of suspenseful crime dramas and interesting mystery tales from the UK, Ireland, as well as other territories including Australia and Canada.

BritBox, on the other hand, debuted in the US in 2017 before launching a separate UK edition in 2019, and then debuting in Australia in 2020. Watching British TV in Australia is made even better by the fact that it’s a joint venture between BBC and ITV, two of the UK’s major broadcasters, plus some programming from Channel 4 and Channel 5 as well. 

Acorn TV or BritBox Australia: Price comparison

How does Acorn TV compare to BritBox, which has perhaps the largest selection of British media on its platform? Here is a comparison of prices on both services in case you’re having trouble deciding.

Acorn TV cost and free trial

Acorn TV costs a fairly generous $6.99 per month, in part because of its specialised programming selection and small library. If you sign up for Acorn TV for a full year, spending $69 for an annual subscription, you can save two months worth of plan fees. For those who have Foxtel subscriptions mainly to access UKTV and BBC First, this is a decent deal. If you’re interested to watch Acorn TV and explore more content, there’s also a free trial that lasts for one week.

BritBox cost and free trial

BritBox is offered on a monthly basis for $8.99/month and on an annual basis for $89.99/year. Just like with Acorn TV, you can save on plan fees worth 2 months when you opt for the annual plan. The 7-day free trial for BritBox is available regardless of your region. 

Overall, the prices of BritBox and Acorn TV are relatively comparable to those of other streaming services with similar scope; but, given their current price comparison, we’d recommend to watch BritBox since you’ll get more bang for your buck.

Content comparison: Acorn TV vs BritBox

Acorn TV and BritBox appear to have different content libraries at first glance. Acorn TV is aimed at a specific audience, the majority of its TV shows are comedies, mystery/crime series, or murder mysteries.

It’s important to note that the UK’s selection of Acorn TV programming is smaller than that of Australia. Some of the titles you can find on Acorn TV are Signora Volpe, Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Foyle’s War, and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, among others. 

BritBox, in comparison, provides a far bigger and more diverse selection of content, including fresh shows like Magpie Murders, Murder in the Provence, Grace, the revival of Spitting Image, Angela Black, and The Pembrokeshire Murders. Moreover, the latest Line of Duty Season 6 and classic Doctor Who seasons are available exclusively on BritBox in Australia. 

Although neither library competes with a reputable streaming platform like Prime Video or Netflix, you can still find movies on both sites. The majority of Acorn’s selection consists of TV movies and feature-length episodes of some of their most popular programmes. BritBox’s collection is more spectacular and currently features Sexy Beast, Wild Rose, The Inbetweeners Movie, and Wild Rose. 

You can find out more of BritBox’s latest content with out ‘What’s on BritBox’ highlights page.

BritBox vs Acorn TV: User interface and features

Both BritBox and Acorn TV have interfaces that are pretty easy and simple to use, as well as intuitive to navigate in your browser.

Both manage their information using navigation bars into useful categories, and they both present their picks in equally useful layouts. The ability to switch between TV shows, movies, and genre-specific lists is incredibly fun for viewers.

Between the actual streaming services, there are just minor differences. Neither interface is as feature-rich as the bigger services, but you can easily find closed captions and the option to watch in full-screen on a computer. Moreover, both platforms have basic streaming video quality (limited to limited to 720p only). Meanwhile, BritBox has the option to skip ahead or backward by 10 seconds whereas this is not available on Acorn TV.

Finally, you may download shows on BritBox and Acorn TV to watch them offline.

Device compatibility: BritBox vs Acorn TV

Both BritBox vs Acorn TV let you stream on a wide range of popular devices, such as smart TVs like LG and Samsung, as well as Fetch TV, Telstra TV, and Apple TV. You can also watch Acorn TV and BritBox on your Smart TV using other streaming devices.

Simply download the app from any device’s app store, sign into the account you made on the website, and you’re ready to start streaming!

Final verdict: Acorn TV vs BritBox Australia

Your choice will be determined by one thing and one thing only: what do you want to watch the most? Both services offer a variety of options to view, are reasonably priced, and deliver extremely basic user experiences.

Even though Acorn TV’s collection has expanded both in the UK and Australia with some hidden treasures to boot, it still appears more skeletal when compared to the more content-prolific BritBox.

Fans of British television will find a much wider variety of content on BritBox, which naturally caters to a much larger audience.

All things considered, BritBox can easily be your go-to source of British entertainment. However, Acorn TV shouldn’t be completely ignored if there are particular shows that only Acorn TV has. In the end, we still recommend you to sign up for a free trial to see whether you’d be interested in purchasing either service or not.

Other streaming services in Australia

Aside from BitBox and AcornTV, there are other streaming apps available in Australia. Each of these streaming platforms has a different appeal as they also have exclusive contents that are only available in their service. And because Aussies love their entertainment, there can’t be too many streaming services.

Here is a list of other major streaming services you can check out.

Compare streaming TV: A comparison guide

If you’re looking for incredible streaming apps that are available in Australia and want to discover more concurrent broadcasts, here are some helpful comparison guides that you can use as references: