ITVX – One Year On

On Friday 8th December 2023, ITVX will celebrate its first birthday. Today ITV takes a look back in celebration of its inaugural year and all the new streaming platform has achieved, plus a look forward to what 2024 and beyond will bring.

ITVX was undoubtedly this year’s biggest and most successful streaming launch in the UK:

• Over 2.7 billion streams since launch, a new record for ITV

• More than 40 million registered users

• Up year on year across ALL genres – drama, sport and film have more than doubled

• 88% of viewers who watch a premier go on to watch other content

• Streaming hours for men have increased by over 100 million this year

• 1 billion streaming hours, another new record for ITV

• Love Island has been streamed 340 million times, over 60% of the audience is 16-34s

• The Rugby World Cup has been streamed 60 million times, up +80% on the last tournament in 2019

• Big Brother: 36 episodes, 38 million streams

• 216 programmes have been watched by a million or more viewers

• 200m streams for 8 out of the past 11 months. Prior to launch, this only happened 6 times in 6 years

The service is now available on more platforms than ever before and awareness of the product is peaking at an impressive 90% of the UK population. ITVX went on to win Best On Demand Service at the Edinburgh TV Awards and Media Brand of the Year at the Media Week Awards, both earlier this year. The platform also has the world’s first British Sign Language FAST channel and in the summer we launched ITVX Kids, which is 100% subtitled.

Breakout hits exclusively launched on ITVX in 2023 include The Twelve, a gripping courtroom drama starring Sam Neill; the first two series of Irvine Welsh’s Crime; Love & Death starring Elizabeth Olsen in a true story of a 1980’s Texas housewife accused of murder; Vanishing Act, the story of Melissa Caddick’s disappearance after being confronted by authorities for her alleged multi-million dollar swindling; two-part documentary The Case Against Cosby; and comedy Changing Ends based on Alan Carr’s childhood in Northampton in the 1980’s, which has just been recommissioned.

In addition, the latest series of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! has been streamed over 20.5 million times in the first week alone, up by more than 3 million on the same period last year (+17%).

And so what’s in the pipeline for 2024:

• A pause ad format

• Short form advertising opportunities

• New distribution partners

• Even more sponsorship opportunities

• Regionalised news

ITV News is at the heart of ITVX and has had over 18.5 million streams of short form news content since launch. Unlike most other streaming services, ITVX has a constantly updated news service on the home page. The service has been expanded with a ‘live news window’, which comes up when there’s a big event to report, such as the King’s speech at the opening of Parliament earlier this month.

In December, a weekly programme with Tom Bradby centred around Prime Minister’s Questions will launch and from January onwards there will be an occasional ‘pop-up news channel’ on ITVX when there’s a big dramatic story we think viewers will want to know about. On top of that, this week ITVX is launching 12 regional news services. They’ll carry all our regional news programmes, feature short form video-on-demand of some of the strongest content from our nations and regions, and additionally some exclusive regional reports made just for ITVX.

Upcoming content exclusive to ITVX includes The Winter King in late December, which is set in the fifth century, long before Britain was united, in a brutal land of warring factions and tribes. Building on the successful Big Brother live stream, as part of our live offering in 2024 ITVX is the brand new home of The Oscars. Plus there’s new Liverpudlian comedy G’Wed, an uplifting, heart-warming and hilarious portrayal of teenagers today and how they view the world, and the second series of the critically acclaimed comedy-drama The Dry. Through an exclusive new deal with Disney+, we will also have the first UK free-to-air run of comedy series Extraordinary and Hollywood drama Under the Banner of Heaven, created by Academy Award®-winner Dustin Lance Black and starring Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones. And in film, we will have new movies dropping every month including all of the Jurassic Park/World franchise.

Rufus Radcliffe, MD of Streaming said: “As we approach the first year milestone of ITVX, it’s important to reflect on the runaway success of the service – and we’re just getting started.
“2024 will see us focus on further increased distribution, even more and improved commercial opportunities, an abundance of regional news offerings and of course even more exclusive, fresh and exciting content for free. Happy 1st birthday ITVX.”
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About ITVX

Launched in late 2022, ITVX is the UK’s freshest streaming service, letting viewers stream new programme exclusives, with adverts, for free; ranging from premium dramas, documentaries, US series, comedy and reality shows to blockbuster films and much, much more. ITVX is the first streaming service in the UK to offer viewers the flexibility to access free content with ads and ad-free paid subscription, all in one place. Paying subscribers also have access to BritBox UK. ITVX live streams must-watch events, from live sport to Love Island, as they are broadcast on ITV’s channels. ITVX also offers an ever-changing host of exclusive themed channels in line with viewer preferences and popularity; these constantly evolving pop-up channel tools provide a scheduled experience through a streaming service.