DS Forums

 
 

UKTV signals record viewership in 2016


Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old Yesterday, 20:21
YouView
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 471

- UKTV's consolidated share of commercial viewership estimated to hit an all-time high of 9.87% for 2016
- UKTV Play saw a 74% increase in views year on year
- UKTV Originals made up six in 10 of highest rating shows on UKTV network last year
- Eight of Dave's top 10 shows were UKTV Originals
- Strongest Christmas period on record, including network's best day ever

UKTV, Britain's biggest multichannel broadcaster, is predicting it will register record-breaking growth in commercial audiences (SOCI) across the last 12 months.

UKTV is projecting 7.7% growth of its SOCI to a record year-end high of 9.87%, putting it ahead of Channel 5's full portfolio and all of Sky's wholly-owned channels (including movies and sport) for the second year running, and closing the gap with the ITV Digital channels group. UKTV's CEO Darren Childs, said,

UKTV's focus on content, brand and digital has grown audiences to almost 10% of all commercial TV viewing. In 2016 we broadened into new genres and built the popularity of programming such as Taskmaster, Dara O Briain's Go 8 Bit and live sport. UKTV Play also grew VOD viewing by 74%, with more viewers coming in to our vibrant TV on demand service than ever before.

UKTV, which is an independent joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Network Interactive Inc. (SNI:NY), airs across its ten-channel network a mixture of UKTV Originals, smart acquisitions and the very best BBC programmes, which remain an important part of UKTV's offering and growth.

UKTV Originals

UKTV's strategy of bolstering schedules with bold, original programming continues to deliver results for the broadcaster, with viewing share up 7.3% in 2016[1]. In a significant shift, six of the top 10 rating shows on UKTV's network in 2016 were UKTV Originals, compared to only one in 2010. The broadcaster also worked with twice as many independent production companies in 2016 than in 2015, reinforcing UKTV's position as a significant investor in the UK creative industry.

Leading the commissioning drive was Dave, the country's most watched non-PSB channel, also named Best Entertainment Channel at the Broadcast Digital Awards. Dave's critically-acclaimed UKTV Originals brought in strong profile audiences, taking eight of the top 10 slots in the channel's ratings list for 2016 and bringing millions of users into TV on demand service UKTV Play. The list of top titles spans more genres than ever before and includes Red Dwarf XI (2.4 million Total Consumption), Live Boxing: David Haye v Mark De Mori (1.9m), Dave Gorman Modern Life is Goodish (1.1m), Taskmaster (1.3m), Celebrity Storage Hunters (1.4m), Dara O Briain's Go 8 Bit (1.2m) and Zapped (1.1m) A new series of sharp-witted US acquisition Suits was also a top performer (737k).

TV On Demand

UKTV Play is the broadcaster's fastest-growing brand, with a 74% increase in direct-to-consumer views year on year. UKTV Originals perform well on the service; there was 179% growth in direct-to-consumer streams of originals from 2015. Downloads of the UKTV Play app were also up 98% year on year.

The hotly-anticipated Red Dwarf XI, which was the network's best performing show of the year, brought huge audiences into UKTV Play, with record-breaking numbers for the exclusive preview of the first episode, and a big drive for newly-launched user registration on uktvplay.co.uk. Following a four month, multi-layered digital campaign for the launch of Red Dwarf X1, Google Analytics data showed social media drove 40% of traffic to uktvplay.co.uk on day one of the preview.

UKTV's video on demand views across all platforms are up 51% year on year[2].

TV channels

A key moment in 2016 was the launch of UKTV's premium entertainment channel W in February. The channel achieved 5% growth in adult share year on year (versus Watch, which formerly took the slot), with viewership amongst the target female audience up by 20%. UKTV Original John Bishop: In Conversation With James Corden pulled in 1.1m, and homegrown Inside the Ambulance 192k. Celebrity Haunted Hotel Live, which featured top talent including Christine Lampard, John Thomson and Jamelia, performed 244% up on slot. Brand new commissions Dr Christian Will See You Now, Dancing for the Weekend and The Dressing Room are coming to the channel in 2017.

Britain's favourite comedy channel Gold had success with new and returning UKTV Originals. The Rebel, starring Simon Callow, attracted an audience of 459k and a second series of Marley's Ghosts. starring John Hannah, Sarah Alexander and Jo Joyner was watched by 424k. Ambitious scripted comedy commissions Murder on the Blackpool Express and Henry IX launch on the channel this year.

Drama, which is the number two non-PSB channel and shows mainly BBC content, had its best year ever, having grown share of viewing by 27% in 2016. Peaking with a daily share of 2.05%, the channel exceeded half a million viewers 31 times with popular BBC shows Inspector George Gently, Death in Paradise and New Tricks bringing in big audiences.

Festive Period

The Christmas period[3] was a record-breaker, with the network achieving 6.84% share, up 3% on its previous best in 2015. UKTV achieved its highest daily share ever recorded - 8.04% on 28th December, beating the previous high 7.64% set on March 27th 2016. Gold - rebranded Christmas Gold for the festive period - had its best Christmas since 2013.

This year UKTV will broadcast brand new series of its rating hit UKTV Originals Red Dwarf, Taskmaster, Dara O Briain's Go 8 Bit, Crackanory, Dave Gorman Modern Life is Goodish and Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled. The broadcaster is also premiering new originations Joy of Techs, Used Car Wars, We Have Been Watching and Lizard Lick Touring, with more exciting originals to announce later this year.
http://corporate.uktv.co.uk/news/art...ewership-2016/
YouView is offline   Reply With Quote
Please sign in or register to remove this advertisement.
Old Yesterday, 21:42
bananaman_007
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne
Posts: 7,998
Dave really took over from BBC3 when it went off air in my book. They are starting to commission some really good originals

Taskmaster
Go 8 Bit
Dave Gorman MLIG
Zapped

And while not my bag Red Dwarf and Storage Hunters UK have both done very well too. Goes to show quality original programmes are what people want. Does not have to be a huge budget either. I See Dave are also going to be doing a weekly technology show, looking forward to that.
bananaman_007 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Yesterday, 22:15
MetalGearRex
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2016
Location: London
Posts: 30
Dave really took over from BBC3 when it went off air in my book. They are starting to commission some really good originals

Taskmaster
Go 8 Bit
Dave Gorman MLIG
Zapped

And while not my bag Red Dwarf and Storage Hunters UK have both done very well too. Goes to show quality original programmes are what people want. Does not have to be a huge budget either. I See Dave are also going to be doing a weekly technology show, looking forward to that.
I second this. Great channel, and it's already getting better through the original content produced. Also, it's proven itself to be one of the strongest brands on TV, simply through the name, it's presentation and its prominence on Freeview.

Dave's also been useful for a Mock the Week repeat every now and then, especially with early series.
MetalGearRex is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Yesterday, 22:46
phildunk1986
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 723
According to A516 Digital UKTV Channels Home and Eden have got low viewing figures.

http://www.a516digital.com/2017/01/u...d-viewing.html

I wonder if Eden will join Freeview, I am sure it will do well free to air, people of all ages are interested in natural history and the BBC make some great programmes many with David Attenborough which are shown on Eden as repeats.

I wonder what UKTV do regarding Home will they bring some new exclusive content to pull viewers like their other channels like Dave. Or will UKTV decide to close the channel Home and transfer their food programmes to Food Network and some content to Really.
Really show some programmes which are on Home like DIY SOS and Escape To The Country. It could be case that UKTV closes Home and Eden takes the capacity.

I noticed from next week Yesterday are showing Classic Comedy between 15.00 - 17.00 in the Afternoon. The comedies are The Two Ronnies, The Best of Tommy Cooper and Allo Allo. These comedies are then shown again in the evening between 21.00 - 23.00.

I wonder if UKTV are planning to launch a second comedy channel which is free to air if this has successful figures. Yesterday starting showing Dramas in the Afternoons that was successful so they launched the Drama channel on Freeview and Satellite and Cable replacing Blighty. This also allowed Yesterday to go back to show more History documentaries.
phildunk1986 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Yesterday, 22:46
zeebre12
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 322
Still they hardly need what is it 11 channels..they could easily condense them down into 6..
zeebre12 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Yesterday, 22:55
ohglobbits
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,133
Shame Sky never made an effort to offer a good free digital entertainment channel like Sky One. They'd have knocked Dave for six.
ohglobbits is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Yesterday, 23:00
phildunk1986
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 723
Shame Sky never made an effort to offer a good free digital entertainment channel like Sky One. They'd have knocked Dave for six.
I wonder if UKTV will launch an Entertainment channel replacing Home on Freeview. The channel could show a mixture of Drama, Home and Gardening programmes, Natural History programmes, Food programmes and classic comedy.
phildunk1986 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old Today, 01:18
Zeropoint1
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Derbyshire / UK
Posts: 3,724
I know UKTV have repeatedly said there are no plans to launch Dave on Freesat, but you have to wonder if it is doing as well as reported if they couldn't get even more viewers by going free to air on satellite.

I can only imagine they money they get from Sky by staying in the subclub must outweigh any potential increase in ad revenue.
Zeropoint1 is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply



Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 10:20.