ITV said streaming hours jumped 55% in the first month of its new ITVX service, launched to compete with Netflix, Disney and Amazon, boosted by viewers watching the World Cup and hit drama Friends “.
The broadcaster, which has committed more than £800m over the next four years in a belated bid to create a national streaming champion fit for the Netflix era, also said online users of ITVX were up 65% year-on-year in the month after its official launch on December 8.
The service replaces the ITV Hub service, which offered an outdated user experience and had an embarrassing history of crashing live at major sporting events.
ITVX withstood the strain of millions of viewers watching key World Cup matches, such as England’s loss to France in the knockout stages, with the tournament underpinning the annual surge in performances.
“It’s great to see so many new viewers coming to ITVX,” said Carolyn McCall, chief executive of ITV. “The World Cup was an important part of that.”
McCall, who needs a win-win with investors as she struggles to shore up a share price that is more than 50% lower than when she joined as chief executive five years ago, also said her strategy spending £160m a year on exclusive content for ITVX looks likely to pay off. Shares rose nearly 3% on Friday.
Stripping out the impact of World Cup viewing, ITV said hours broadcast on ITVX were up 29% year-on-year in the month to January 7.
ITV Sport (left to right) Laura Woods, Jill Scott and Annie Aluko ahead of the World Cup quarter-final between England and France in Qatar. Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images
Among the series to launch on ITVX were the period drama The Confessions of Frannie Langton; the six-part Cold War drama A Spy Among Friends; and Riches, a drama about the ultra-rich.
“We continue to see strong year-over-year growth in January,” McCall said. “Away from live streaming, viewers have welcomed our strong line-up of launch titles exclusive to ITVX, with many viewers coming from harder-to-reach audiences.”
Importantly, McCall said the free ITVX service has proven to be a popular drawcard among advertisers.
Sign up for Business Today
Get ready for the day – every morning we’ll direct you to all the business news and analysis you need
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertisements and content funded by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to secure our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
In March, ITV suffered a major blow to its share price as investors abandoned plans for a huge investment in streaming immediately after Netflix warned that the pandemic-fueled streaming boom was winding down.
ITV spent £65m on ITVX last year and will spend £195m this year and then a steady £185m a year – including a content budget of £160m – in each of 2024, 2025 and 2026.
“ITV’s challenge is to get those viewers to stick around,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. “The broadcaster points to good growth in January but will need more than one strong month to overcome market skepticism about the ITVX venture and the significant content spend associated with it. ITV had to do something to deal with the transition from the world of analogue to digital television and it cannot really afford ITVX to be out of business.’
Add Comment