BBC Select Launches

BBC Select has launched as a subscription streamer with “all-new documentaries on culture, politics and ideas.”

The current lineup includes:

• The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, three 50-minute episodes promising “the inside story” of Rupert Murdoch’s global empire, which includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

• TV’s Black Renaissance: Reggie Yates in Hollywood – an hour-long special in which the actor/DJ travels to Los Angeles to tackle how TV series with mostly Black casts like FX’s Atlanta, Netflix’s Dear White People and HBOs Insecure are “pioneering a new frankness about race and identity.” In the following clip, however, he speaks with Caleb McLaughlin of Netflix’s Stranger Things:

• Grayson Perry: Big American Road Trip, three hour-long episodes with the Brit (left) creating art while crossing the U.S. by motorcycle.

• Shock of the Nude, two hour-long episodes with Professor Mary Beard (right) giving a personal take on the nude in western art, from ancient Greece to the present.

• The Mystery of the Missing Princess, one 50-minute episode telling the story of Dubai’s Princess Latifa, who tried to escape from imprisonment at the hands of her father.

BBC Select also features The Drop, consisting of a weekly collection of shows around a given theme — plus a short film from one individual on the theme. The opener: Civil rights activist Alicia Garza on “Power.”

Future guest speakers will include Roxane Gay, Lionel Shriver, Malcolm Gladwell, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Ai Weiwei, Elif Shafak, Padma Lakshmi, Chuck D and Jamelle Bouie.

You can check out BBC Select’s library at bbcselect.com. The service is available for $4.99 a month following a seven-day free trial as an Amazon Prime add-on channel or via the Apple TV app.

BBC Select’s documentary competition includes Discovery+ and CuriosityStream. On the Anglophile side, it’s competing with Acorn TV and its own BritBox, co-owned with ITV.

(Top image source: BBC Select Facebook page. Other images courtesy BBC Studios)