Archiving Netflix: how and what we preserve from the streamer’s programming

Television has been transformed in the last decade. For those of us who grew up with a mere four channels with rigorously set schedules, the freedom and choice offered by the plethora of platforms that are now available still feels occasionally mind-blowing. 

Leading the charge in this revolution, Netflix has changed how television is commissioned, consumed and distributed on a global scale. Since 2012, British audiences have enjoyed the innovative way in which Netflix began releasing whole series in a single day and the pleasures of selecting exciting new series which sit alongside old favourites in a vast library of film and television. Last year statistics showed that 59% of households in the UK had a subscription to Netflix. 

At the BFI National Archive, we have a mission to care for and collect the nation’s television heritage, and so we have long recognised the cultural impact that Netflix has had on British television and beyond. We were thrilled to be able to form a partnership with Netflix UK which enables us to acquire and preserve a selected amount of Netflix films and programmes as part of the national collection. We announced this partnership in 2022, and from that point on we began to build the technical infrastructure that has made this goal possible.  

The first group of our selections comprised 175 individual British programmes and films (around 146 hours of programming) chosen by archive curators. This initial collection was curated across a wide range of genres and formats to represent the variety of original British Netflix programming. Though the platform may be most famed for its high-profile drama and comedy series, Netflix UK has also commissioned and produced a number of original game shows, natural history series, documentaries and many more besides. The television collections we hold in the BFI National Archive from public service broadcasters feature television programmes across all genres, and we were keen to ensure that our Netflix collection also included as much variety as possible to give a true representation of the extent of their work across UK production. 

It took 18 months for us to achieve our initial goal of acquiring these programmes to the digital preservation infrastructure of the BFI National Archive. We’ve published the complete list of acquired titles, and our colleagues in collections data and documentation have ensured that the programmes and films are fully listed in our online collections database. 

Below you will find a selection of highlights from this first collection with notes from curators regarding their importance to the archive, but first my colleague Michael explains how this work is technically managed. 

– Lisa Kerrigan 

In the BFI National Archive’s Digital Media Specialists team we handle myriad formats, each with inherent benefits and challenges.

Netflix introduced us to their content distribution format of choice, the Interoperable Master Format (IMF) during acquisition planning. Netflix builds bespoke, regionalised IMF packages (IMPs) containing separate video and audio mxf files. Sitting alongside the audiovisual files are three interlinked xml documents containing a package content listing, assembly instructions and file hashes. These alphanumeric hash calculations act as digital fingerprints ensuring no corruption has beset the bits and bytes within.  

Following transfer into the BFI National Archive network, the IMPs are subject to validation and quality control (QC) checks. To facilitate this work we built a viewing suite within the BFI National Archive Conservation Centre in Berkhamsted. The soundproofed room houses 10 surround speakers, catering for immersive audio playback including Dolby Atmos. For video QC, we opted for a consumer television over the traditional grading monitor. We thus emulate the watching experience that Netflix intends, in a domestic-like environment. Our viewing setup allows for 4K resolution playback in Dolby Vision. 

Our chosen QC player integrates seamlessly with IMF; building compositions with little human intervention. Automated validation against IMF technical specifications has proven equally painless, allowing us to export technical reports for long-term preservation, along with the IMF packages themselves. 

Adapting our established ways of working to incorporate streaming continues to be a work in progress. But by fostering solid relationships with our partners and investing in a solid infrastructure, we are ready to face emerging technologies head-on and with confidence. 

– Michael Norman  

Below are some highlights from this initial collection and we will soon be adding to these with further series and more recent programming. 

From Downton Abbey to Pride and Prejudice, there is an enormous appetite for period dramas. Netflix and the production company Shondaland have affirmed that Bridgerton has boosted the UK economy by more than a quarter of a billion pounds and has supported thousands of businesses over the past five years since its first series. We have researched productions that have been certified using the BFI British cultural test to help identify high-end television co-productions that fit the remit of our collection, and Bridgerton is an example of this. We’re proud to acquire Shondaland’s first scripted show for Netflix for all it celebrates about the Regency period and use of UK filming locations. The Bridgerton universe challenges our perceptions of what makes a good period drama, as it’s more inclusive than we expect, and the programme has sexed up the genre in a way that has rarely been seen before.  

– Chantelle Lavel Boyea 

Police procedurals typically take place across a city, in a spiral of events that are unpacked when our lead detective returns to the safety of HQ. For Criminal, the model was inverted: the action takes place mostly within and outside one room, behind a one-way mirror, with personality clashes and internal crises carrying across from one episode to the next. The show was created in different versions for several different nations, with Spanish, German and French editions. In the UK version, written by George Kay, the guest interviewees included BAFTA-nominated performances from Sophie Okonedo and Kunal Nayyar. 

– Xavier Pillai

Acquired during the first year of our partnership with the streaming giant, The Crown adds to our collection of work by the show’s creator, Peter Morgan, who has a long track record of writing about the British monarchy for film and TV. The Crown has changed the way we view the royal family, letting us into what life could have been like behind their public image, and showing that they too can be fallible and relatable. What makes this series different to other iterations is the timescale it depicts, from a young Queen Elizabeth II finding her confidence as she ascends the throne to becoming a mature woman trying to stay relevant in a modern and increasingly multicultural Britain. The series seamlessly puts together moments from our living memory, intertwined with riveting drama that gives audiences an opportunity to see life from the perspective of the longest serving queen in British history.   

– Chantelle Lavel Boyea 

A sensation in 2019, RAW TV’s internet sleuthing tale Don’t F**k with Cats was the platform’s first major true-crime hit, providing the streamer with a compelling formula: popular internet cultural phenomenon, a tale with local media coverage and grisly violence. 

In Montreal, the story of murderer Luka Magnotta was already well known. His 12-week trial for the murder of Chinese university student Jun Lin attracted huge attention and much anticipation around the verdict. The case’s perverse violence fascinated the region. It was this fervour that Netflix has been able to capitalise on, establishing a model for taking the local story global which would be followed by the likes of Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey (2022) and Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal (2023). 

– Xavier Pillai 

Netflix has led a boom in standup comedy specials for television, and comedy is such a hallmark of the platform that it now holds an annual festival with live events, Netflix Is a Joke. Comedy has been a highly successful way for the company to engage with audiences in different countries by using known talent and then promoting performers on Netflix’s global platform. Perhaps the best example of this is Hannah Gadsby’s 2018 special Nanette, which received international acclaim.  

British comedians including Jimmy Carr, Mo Gilligan, Ricky Gervais and London Hughes have all released standup specials on the platform, but James Acaster was the first one to make multiple specials and release them as this series. These shows really can be viewed as a series as the material shares an interrelated universe and watching them together brings an appreciation for the craft of Acaster’s comedy. 

– Lisa Kerrigan 

Netflix has produced a number of outstanding natural history series including Our Planet (2019) and Our Universe (2022). This series, Night on Earth, takes a less expansive approach and in doing so, reveals the breathtaking beauty of the natural world under the cover of night. Using cutting-edge technology to film at ultra high definition in low light, the series captures unbelievable scenes of hungry cheetahs, Caribbean flamingos and more, in dazzling moonlit nightscapes. Released early in 2020, the series became a welcome way to escape the confines of lockdown through the beautiful photography of far-flung locations.  

Bristol, home to the BBC’s Natural History Unit since the 1950s, is now a global hub for natural history filmmaking and the producers of Night on Earth, Plimsoll Productions, are one of several major independent production companies based there. 

– Lisa Kerrigan 

We may experience Netflix through our televisions (or other smallish screens), but the streaming platform also looms large in the world of cinema, and our collection for the archive includes a number of feature films. This adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s novel by screenwriters Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse is stylish and unsettling, with a terrific turn by Kristin Scott Thomas as Mrs Danvers. Director Ben Wheatley gives the classic story just a hint of folk horror, and the vivid golden tones of the initial romantic scenes in Monte Carlo stand in stark contrast to the icy blue of Rebecca’s Manderley. This version of du Maurier’s tale joins film copies of Hitchcock’s classic 1940 feature in the collections of the BFI National Archive. 

– Lisa Kerrigan 

Festive animated specials have become something of a fixture for public service broadcasters in recent years, with the BBC’s regular adaptations of Julia Donaldson books and Channel 4’s takes on Judith Kerr stories. Netflix took a different approach with the original animated musical Robin Robin, announced in 2019 and released in November 2021. Creators Mikey Please and Dan Ojari pitched the film to British animation powerhouse Aardman, and convinced the Bristol-based studio to make its first foray into needle felt stop-motion. As our Curator of Animation Jez Stewart wrote: “beautifully realised with needle felt puppets, elaborate set-ups and a distinguished voice cast (including Richard E. Grant’s memorable Magpie), it’s a delightful and stodge-free seasonal treat.”

– Lisa Kerrigan 

Sunderland ‘til I Die was one of the first full access, behind-the-curtain football documentaries (Amazon’s All or Nothing: Manchester City debuted the same year and this has been followed recently by FX’s Welcome to Wrexham). It embedded international audiences in the cultural force of football and its power in British communities. After successive periods of mismanagement, Sunderland FC suffered an extended fall from grace, and the show captured their lowest points over time and in intimate detail. The show’s inside view of the high stakes world of elite sport and its impact on the people that follow it drew in new audiences and ushered in a new era for fly-on-the-wall sport documentaries. 

– Xavier Pillai  

Top Boy became the first programme to be acquired from a streaming platform for preservation at the BFI National Archive, adding to our previous acquisitions of the show from its time on Channel 4. Netflix has taken Top Boy on to be a huge hit with global audiences, including the Canadian musician Drake, who came on as an executive producer. The series touches on multiple themes that have resonated with audiences, from the gentrification of London, gang violence to love and friendships, giving depth to each character and a story arc worthy of their own limited series.  

Top Boy has paved the way for brilliant breakout stars like Michael Ward, Jasmine Jobson performing alongside well-known musicians Lil Simz and Dave. As well as having an impressive impact on the UK television industry with multiple award nominations and wins, Netflix’s production of Top Boy is highly regarded in its commitment to inclusion, from its casting and storytelling to providing training opportunities for new talent off-screen. 

– Chantelle Lavel Boyea