UKTV Play, the advert funded streaming service owned by the BBC, enjoyed record growth last year with a 56% increase in viewing and a 48% growth in monetisable views.
The service offers catch-up content from the BBC’s four UK ad funded channels – Yesterday, Drama, Dave and W – plus a regularly updated library of boxsets and, on selected platforms, streamed versions of the linear channels.
Apps for the service are available on Freeview Play devices as well as Samsung Smart TVs and all major streaming and mobile platforms including Apple TV, Google TV, Fire TV, Android and iOS.
This year is expected to see the BBC’s recently launched bundle of FAST channels, which are already available on Samsung TV, Amazon Freevee and Pluto TV, added to UKTV Play.
In addition, 2024 will see the app rebranded to ‘U’ and the channel names prefaced by ‘U&’ – for example, Drama will become U&Drama and Dave will become U&Dave.
The new branding will also be introduced to the BBC’s three UK subscription channels, including comedy channel Gold, at a later date.
In addition to the success in streaming, the seven UKTV branded channels held a total audience share of 4.92% in the year ending 31st December 2023 – up from 4.70% last year – and an 8.81% share of commercial impacts (SOCI) in the same period.
The channels are all owned and operated by BBC Studios, the broadcaster’s commercial arm which exists to monetise its content and formats and raise money to support the core UK operations which are predominantly funded by the Licence Fee.
Marcus Arthur, CEO for UKTV and President of UK Distribution for BBC Studios, said: “It’s been an extremely challenging year for the TV advertising market and the downward spiral has been much longer and deeper than many predicted.
“However, UKTV is weathering this storm well, achieving record SOCI and streaming growth last year as we continue to transform the business into a digital first and audience-led company.”
He added: “2024 will be another tough year for commercial broadcasters with the advertising recession continuing to bite, but I’m confident that UKTV will remain on its growth trajectory and I’m looking forward to uniting UKTV’s free TV and digital portfolio under new masterbrand U.”