The BBC and ITV have set aside decades of fierce rivalry to join forces and launch a subscription streaming service, BritBox, in the United States to follow the trail blazed by Netflix.

The venture aims to boost international revenues for both broadcasters, and is seen as a prelude the introduction of a subscription service in the UK.

Fans of British television in America will be able to subscribe from the first quarter of next year to a library of new and archive programming including the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances and ITV’s long-running detective series Inspector Morse.

New episodes of soaps such as Eastenders and Emmerdale will be available as soon as a day after broadcast in the UK.

The BBC is under pressure to increase its overseas revenues as part of the new charter it agreed with the Government this year. The deal preserved the licence fee but mandated the broadcaster to find new sources of commercial funding.

For ITV, BritBox fits in with its effort to reduce its dependence on the volatile advertising market.

While pay-TV subscriptions have grown in the UK amid the entry of new players such as BT and TalkTalk, in the US subscription streaming services are challenging traditional cable operators. The market there for services such as Netflix and Hulu, which akin to BritBox offers a selection of programming from across the major American networks, is now worth $8bn.