In February 2019, it was announced that BritBox would be launched in the UK later in the year as a rival to Netflix. Journalist Mark Lawson likened the proposed project to BBC Worldwide's previous failed platform, Project Kangaroo, which was expected to launch in 2008, and described it as "bizarre" and "hugely risky". In March 2019, Channel 4 confirmed interest in collaborating with the BBC and ITV. Currently, "McMafia", "Last Tango in Halifax", "Les Misérables" and the sitcom "Gavin & Stacey" have been confirmed to be available on the UK version. In July 2019, the BBC and ITV announced they had signed an agreement to launch BritBox in the UK in the last quarter of 2019. On 20 September 2019, ITV announced they had reached a deal with Viacom (now ViacomCBS) for Channel 5 and Comedy Central UK content. This was followed by an announcement on 27 September that Samsung TVs, Freeview Play and YouView would be the first distribution platforms   In October 2019, BritBox launched its "testing phase" (beta) in the United Kingdom, in which users can sign up for a free trial to have a "snapshot of what will be there at launch". One day before UK launch, on 6 November 2019, the Guardian reported that Channel 4 is to join BritBox after the two signed a 3-year deal to provide 1000+ hours of content from All 4 "with a range of comedy, drama and non-scripted programmes from across the service, including new series, and for the first time to any streamer, an exclusive Film4 curated service featuring iconic British films". This means for the first time, all the UK's traditional channels have managed to successfully bring together programmes on a single streaming service. Channel 4 content will be available on BritBox from April 2020 and Film4 content later in 2020, with recently aired content being only available on BritBox 31 days after the airing of the last episode on Channel 4. Channel 4 currently has not taken an equity stake in BritBox. In March 2020, ITV described BritBox as "on plan" following its UK launch last November. The majority-owner in the BBC-ITV streaming venture reported a “strong growth” in subscribers, but didn’t report any specific numbers. On March 5 2020, BBC and ITV announced that BritBox is to launch in Australia, the service would bring Australians "an unrivalled collection of great British TV shows, and will build on the successful launch and operation of the service in both North America (USA and Canada) and most recently in the UK".