The BBC Built Peaky Blinders. Netflix Got the Movie.

Happy Monday, sceptics.

I spent a decade with Tommy Shelby. Six series. Watched him bury friends, lie to the people he loved, and walk into fog that should've swallowed him whole.

And when the BBC finally gave him a film to finish the story?

They put it on Netflix.

So today's issue is personal.

Coffee at the ready.…

The BBC just handed its strongest argument for existing to a Californian tech company.

The licence fee funded Peaky Blinders for ten years. Now, The Immortal Man sits behind a Netflix paywall. Not iPlayer.

You watched from series one?

You need a second subscription to see how it ends.

The licence fee rises to £180 in April.

The BBC charter expires in 2027. The timing couldn't be worse.

Before we slurp into today’s brew…

Here are some wordies from today’s sponsor.

Ready to trade crypto "crazy" for something bigger and better? The $4 trillion single-family rental market is 3x larger than Bitcoin. It’s less volatile than nearly any paper asset. Plus, you get monthly income from rent, and these investments have a near 0 correlation to stocks.  

That’s why you need mogul. They’re the platform that lets you invest in the same SFRs as institutions for a fraction of the cost. Their founders use the same process they did at Goldman Sachs to identify high-performing properties. 

Why Sophisticated Investors Choose mogul:

Don’t let Wall Street monopolize the best yields. Access the institutional-grade rental machine and compound your wealth today.

Secure Your Allocation.

Past performance isn't predictive; illustrative only. Investing risks principal; no securities offer. See important Disclaimers

Look, I get it. Films cost money. Cillian Murphy won an Oscar since series six wrapped.

You don't put him back in a flat cap on a BBC Two budget. Netflix wrote the cheque. BBC Film took a co-producer credit — and likely got paid for it. Fine.

But it doesn't make it sting less.

Peaky Blinders logged 55.6 million iPlayer streams in 2022 alone.

The BBC built it from a niche Birmingham period drama into the kind of show strangers quote at you in pubs. All six series still sit on iPlayer.

But the finale costs at least £4.99 a month on top of the £180 you're already paying.

The BBC never fully owned the show.

Caryn Mandabach Productions was always the lead producer. Netflix acquired US streaming rights in 2014, turned it into a global hit, and built the leverage. Then came the film. BBC Studios pulls in £1.8 billion a year. Netflix spends $16 billion on content.

Bring a packed lunch to that meeting.

Meanwhile, the whole model is wobbling.

300,000 UK households dropped their licence fees last year. Active licences fell to 23.8 million — down from over 26 million in 2018. A sequel series is confirmed for BBC One and iPlayer. So they can keep UK rights when they want to.

So why was the movie different?

Pro: Netflix's money funds films the BBC can't make alone — and the sequel series returns to iPlayer.

Con: Licence fee payers built Peaky Blinders for a decade and now pay twice to see the ending.

Our read: Co-production pays for bigger films. But if the BBC can't keep UK streaming rights for its own shows? The licence fee starts to look like a development grant for Silicon Valley.

[Report] House of Commons Library — "The future of the BBC licence fee"

Charter review launched in December 2025. Options range from reforming what triggers a licence to putting adverts on iPlayer.

Why it matters: Public money builds the brand. Private platform profits from the ending. Repeat until nobody pays.

94% use BBC services. Only 80% pay. [BBC]

CNBC — Jury finds Musk misled Twitter investors — Damages could hit $2.6 billion. His net worth: $650 billion. That's you losing a fiver down the sofa.

NPR — Oil tops $110 as Strait of Hormuz crisis deepens — Crude up 45% since the Iran conflict began. Your petrol station already got the memo.

GOV.UK — Licence fee rises to £180 from April — An extra 46p a month. The government calls it "stable footing." Ask your wallet.

You can read all our back issue newsletters for free here.

For the love of coffee, see you tomorrow!

Enjoy your Monday, keep it caffeinated.

Thanks for reading!

Are you subscribing?

Join your crew of caffeinated sceptics today.

Be sure to get your daily Curse and Coffee fix by hitting the button below.

Open Monday to Friday.

Read Friday’s newsletter about AI eating your phone here.

Share this with someone paying £180 for content that ends up on Netflix.

Learn how to read any government/company PDF without crying!

Take advantage of what others miss. We teach you how to extract the gems from the dirt.

Share the Curse and Coffee newsletter with just 1 real person to download your Receipts Toolkit instantly—a field guide for caffeinated sceptics who want to pull signal from filings, datasets, and reports.

No law degree needed—a no-nap promise.

Unlock and never struggle to identify opportunities in long, drawn-out documents again.

“Receipts over vibes. Always.”

Thank you for sharing…

And be sure to use your toolkit to extract max alpha from any document you read.

Stay Caffinated!