ITV has announced that, on Easter Sunday 2023, ITVX officially hit the one billion streams mark, just over four months after the service’s launch on December 8, 2022.
2022 was ITV’s previous most successful year for streaming, when it took nearly seven months to hit the one billion streams mark.
This follows on from ITVX achieving its best ever month for streaming in March 2023, with 282 million streams, up by more than 100 million on last year.
Dramas The Twelve, Without Sin and A Spy Among Friends were the top performing ITVX premieres in the period, and ITV says that 80 per cent of audiences who have watched ITVX premieres, including titles like Nolly and Litvinenko, have gone on to watch other content on ITVX.
Amongst ITVX’s extensive archives, the most popular UK drama series so far is noughties WAG drama Footballers Wives, with One Tree Hill clocking up the highest volume of streams to date amongst the range of US boxsets on ITVX. The most popular film in the library since launch is Love Actually, with The Chase channel as the most popular themed (FAST) channel to date.
Love Island in 2023 has been a strong driver of streaming and is the most watched programme on ITVX this year based on streams, with the fifth series of Unforgotten being the most watched drama – streams of the acclaimed cold case series are up 49 per cent on series four.
Streams of sporting events including 6 Nations Rugby and the FA Cup have pulled in strong livestream audiences in 2023, with year-on-year uplifts on the new and improved service.
ITVX’s consideration and awareness scores have risen strongly since launch, with recently reported data from YouGov’s BrandIndex tool revealing that ITVX has now overtaken All4 and Disney+ in terms of consideration.
Forthcoming highlights on ITVX include The Real Crown: Inside the House of Windsor, streaming free from April 20, the real behind-the-scenes story of the lives, loves, scandals, trials and tribulations of the world’s most famous family.
New drama Tom Jones will stream free on ITVX from May 4. Based on Henry Fielding’s classic novel, following the title character’s complicated journey to find real love, Solly McLeod (The Rising) stars as the hero Tom, alongside Sophie Wilde (You Don’t Know Me) as heroine Sophia Western. The series also stars Ted Lasso favourite Hannah Waddingham.
New Irvine Welsh series Crime comes to ITVX on May 11, with two-part documentary Rolf Harris: Hiding in Plain Sight following from May 18, speaking directly to Harris’ accusers and telling the story of how his assaults became gradually more serious throughout his television career in the 70s and 80s.
