Fewer people are paying ITV to watch its streaming services, but UK’s biggest free-to-air broadcaster is optimistic for the future. It plans to make ITVX available on more devices.
- ITV targets 2.5 million paying ITVX users by 2026.
- But closure of standalone BritBox app and ITV Catch-up service on Prime Video has reduced the number of subscribers in the past year.
- ITVX to roll out on more devices this year, including Playstation 4 and 5.
ITV says it’s “on track” to deliver on its targets as investors in the broadcaster scrutinise its latest results. Broadcasters are under pressure to deliver as viewers switch to streaming services, with competition in the sector growing each year. Yesterday, the broadcaster reported a 61% fall in profits in 2023 (down to £193 million) due to a downturn in TV advertising and investment in ITVX.
What is ITV doing to boost ITVX?
To reach more users, ITVX will launch on additional devices during 2024, becoming more widely available on games consoles. The broadcaster has confirmed rollout across Playstation 4 and 5 this year. It’s also expecting the launch of Freeview replacement Freely to help boost its overall reach.
The broadcaster says it will continue to improve its streaming service. Although ITVX is widely seen as a vast improvement on its predecessor, the ITV Hub, it still generates a broad range of complaints across social media for various bugs and crashes.
To benefit advertisers, ITV will introduce subtitles on adverts and a new feature Pause Ads feature that will play adverts when a user pauses a programme.
To pay or not to pay?
Notably in the past year, ITV has had some difficulties retaining paying customers, as reviewed in its financial results.
A number of former BritBox users have opted against switching to its replacement ITVX Premium, which incorporates BritBox UK’s programme library for the same monthly price.
The number of paying subscribers has dropped by around 100,000 over the last year. As of 31st December , ITV had 1.3 million subscribers. However, ITV is optimistic about its target to double the number of paying subscribers. By 2026, it wants 2.5 million users to have upgraded to the ITVX Premium service.
ITV notes it is managing to attract traditionally hard to reach audiences to its streaming service, with News on ITVX cited in its financial results as “an important driver of viewing”.
There are over 25,000 hours of content available (including over 7,000 hours exclusively on the premium ad-free tier), including on-demand content from our five linear TV channels, FAST channels, exclusive ITVX content (such as anime, true crime and US box sets), ITVX Kids, and over 300 films creating one of the UK’s largest free film libraries.
[Analysis] Is ITVX growing?
During its first year, ITVX has seen streaming numbers flatline, based on ITV’s metric of counting the number of stream requests. ITVX reached a billion streams in Easter 2023 – four months after launching. Since then, the next billion stream milestones have followed at further 4 month intervals (2 billion in August 2023 and 3 billion by end of December 2023).
If streaming numbers were increasing, then ITVX would reach 4 billion streams before April – i.e. the gaps between the billion stream milestones would get shorter. Coverage of the Rugby World Cup, plus the return of Big Brother failed to speed up the time between the billion stream milestones in the autumn, although streaming hours are higher than recent years.
The signs are positive: ITVX reported its biggest month ever in January, thanks to big hitting ITV shows, including Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Key stats:
UK subscribers
- 31st December 2022: 1.4 million
- 31st December 2023: 1.3 million
Total streaming hours
- 2022: 1,192 million
- 2023: 1,505 million
Share of commercial viewing
- 2022: 33.8%
- 2023: 32.6%
Marc Thornham