UKTV, the commercial multi-channel broadcaster owned by the BBC, saw use of its free UKTV Play streaming service grow by over a quarter last year.
The growth has been attributed to the addition of more than 3,000 hours of new original commissions and acquired content plus the addition of content from the broadcaster’s W channel which moved from subscription to free-to-air in March.
Over the past year the service also attracted a million new sign-ups – taking the total number of registered users to 6.45m – and is currently upgrading its content to High Definition.
Capacity limits on Freeview mean none of UKTV’s channels are available in HD on the platform so the upgrade of UKTV Play will allow viewers to experience the broadcaster’s original commissions, including Bangers and Cash and the BAFTA winning Big Zuu’s Big Eats, in the format for the first time.
Existing content on the service for which a HD version exists is being upgraded in batches over the coming months, but all new content uploaded from today will automatically be available in High Definition.
Apps for the service are included as standard on Freeview Play TVs and set top boxes and are also available to download for mobile phones and popular streaming devices such as Amazon’s Fire TV range and the Apple set top box.
As well as its growth in streaming, UKTV’s network also achieved a record share of commercial impacts (SOCI) of 8.70%, up from 8.52% in 2021.
W’s move to free-to-air helped it record 23% share growth year-on-year while entertainment channel Dave continued to have the strongest reach of any non-PSB owned channel, reaching 13.8m adults per month in 2022.
On Drama the Sister Boniface Mysteries, a spin-off from BBC One’s Father Brown, was watched by 1.3million viewers – the highest rating show in the channel’s history – while on Yesterday original commissions accounted for the top five highest rating shows.
UKTV CEO, Marcus Arthur, said: “Despite the economic downturn in the latter half of 2022, UKTV has continued to grow its share of the commercial TV market (SOCI) to record levels while continuing to invest in services and programming.
“UKTV Play has undergone product updates and a major brand refresh, while thousands of hours of new content have been added to the service, resulting in growth of over a quarter.
“Across five of our channels UKTV Original commissions were the top performing shows, and we saw our commitment to finding and launching new talent continue to bear fruit with the second series of Big Zuu’s Big Eats winning two BAFTAs earlier in the year.”
Looking ahead, Arthur added: “We know it’s going to be a challenging time for all commercial broadcasters as we face into an advertising recession, however, at UKTV we remain committed to continuing to invest in channels, content and UKTV Play to fuel growth and provide our viewers with even more content they love.”