1) the rights to show those programs outside the UK don't exist 2) If they do exist, this would cannibalise the income via global sales, and someone has (right

1) the rights to show those programs outside the UK don't exist 2) If they do exist, this would cannibalise the income via global sales, and someone has (rightly or wrongly) crunched the numbers and determined that selling Top Gear to foreign broadcasters makes more money than having iplayer as a subscription. There may also be political issues with having iplayer as a subscription too (including a call from the right wing to make iplayer subscription based for everyone. After OnDigital/ITVDigital collapsed, the BBC got in very quickly with freeview, ensuring that large numbers of decoders lacked a CAM and thus making it harder to argue for subscription) See also Channel 5 sell Peppa Pig to Nickleodon rather than doing it direct. Or paramount selling rights to Star Trek series' via netflix or amazon rather than paramount plus outside the US.