ITV has announced that its OTT service, ITV Hub, has achieved a significant uplift in both reach and consumption hours during the first quarter of 2020. 

Year on year consumption hours have increased by 82%, while monthly reach on the platform has risen by 40%. ITV Hub plus, ITV’s ad-free service, has also grown 80% since the same period last year.

Figures also released for March 2020 reveal how the Hub has witnessed a 49% increase year on year in simulcast viewing, owing to a strong schedule across programme genres.

The current ten most viewed shows across the ITV Hub are Liar, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Belgravia, Sam & Billie: The Mummy Diaries, Ibiza Weekender, Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, The Trouble with Maggie Cole, Family Guy and The Good Karma Hospital *

Additionally, viewing across Connected TV devices has risen by 35%.

Both drama and news and current affairs content have helped to boost the service’s catch up and simulcast audience figures in the past month, with catch up across drama up 26% year on year, further to the recent success of the second series of Liar.

Meanwhile simulcast viewing between the hours of 06:00am and 09:00am has increased by 55%, driven by Good Morning Britain’s ongoing news coverage around the Coronavirus.

As part of a broadened content offering, the ITV Hub this weekend debuted a brand new Britain’s Got Talent spin off, Britain’s Got Talent: Unseen, made exclusively for the platform. To supplement a Summer without the Euros, the Hub will also be showing every match from the legendary Euro 96 football tournament this May.

Steve Forde, Director of Digital Products, ITV, said “The recent uplift in the first quarter for the ITV Hub and Hub plus in both reach and consumption is hugely encouraging, as we continue to evolve the platforms and look at new ways to enhance our content.”

ABOUT KAUSER KANJI

Kauser Kanji has been working in online video for 19 years, formerly at Virgin Media, ITN and NBC Universal, and founded VOD Professional in 2011. He has since completed major OTT projects for, amongst others, A+E Networks, the BBC, BBC Studios, Channel 4, DR (Denmark), Liberty Global, Netflix, Sony Pictures, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation and UKTV. He now writes industry analyses, hosts an online debate show, OTT Question Time, as well as its in-person sister event, OTT Question Time Live

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