UKTV was the fastest growing commercial TV network in 2012
December 2012 was UKTVs most successful month in its 20 year history
The network delivered year-on-year SOCI growth every month
UKTV grew its share of viewing in Pay by 2%
UKTV achieved over 3 million Video on Demand views across all of its new platforms London, 9 January 2013: Official end of year BARB data has confirmed that 2012 was a record-breaking year for UKTV*, with the award-winning 10 channel network achieving greater percentage growth than any other TV network and enjoying its best performance since UKTVs inception (with a 4.43% share, up 10% compared to 2011). The network delivered SOCI (Share of Commercial Impacts) growth every month, including during an Olympics-filled August, with end of year SOCI at 8%.
UKTV also launched its own On Demand services in Q4 (Dave, Yesterday and Really) and, combined with services on BT Vision and Sky On Demand, total UKTV digital views topped three million.
The festive period proved particularly successful for UKTV with the network achieving its highest ever Boxing Day share with 5.83% (up 15% year-on-year). December was also UKTVs best ever performing month, with an average share of 4.72% (up 4% year-on-year). Week 52 was UKTVs highest rating week of 2012 with a 5.21% share and a strong performance by the nations favourite comedy channel Gold contributed to this success with in excess of a 1% share across Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Gold was also the seventh most watched channel in Pay homes on Christmas Day and was up 5% year-on-year across week 52 with an average 0.96% share. In addition, Dave performed well in week 52, up a quarter year-on-year, averaging a 1.33% share.
UKTV CEO Darren Childs commented, ?UKTV is a growth story: in every month of 2012 weve achieved record growth, outperforming the market, and delivering our programmes to record numbers of viewers. Im looking forward to building on UKTVs success in 2013, when our viewers will see the result of further content spend on screen and a number of brand new commissions will premiere across the network.?
The news comes at the end of a 12 month period where original commissions formed many of the channels? top performing shows and helped make UKTV the fastest growing commercial broadcaster of 2012. The premiere episode of Dynamo: Magician Impossible on Pay channel Watch achieved UKTVs highest rating with 2.1million viewers, followed closely by the premiere of Red Dwarf X on Dave with 2.09 million viewers. Comedy channel Gold benefitted from UKTVs multi-million pound investment in comedy with original commissions such as The Comic Strip Presents: Five Go To Rehab and Bring Me Morecambe and Wise both featuring stellar talent and attracting large audiences. Lifestyle channel Good Food achieved its highest audience of the year with standout commission Hairy Bikers Mississippi Adventure which attracted 163k viewers to its premiere episode.
Year-end BARB stats also reveal that Really ( 168%), Eden ( 21%), Yesterday ( 21%), Watch ( 5%), Dave ( 3%) and Alibi ( 1%) all saw growth year-on-year (% growth based on share). In addition, UKTV grew its share of viewing in Pay by 2% (year-on-year), with Home as the lifestyle genre leader in Pay homes and flagship entertainment channel Watch smashing through the million viewer mark 28 times.
UKTV will build on this success in 2013 with an investment of over £100 million in content. Viewers have a lot to look forward to; later this month Gold airs the brand new series of Yes, Prime Minister, David Attenborough presents original Eden commission David Attenborough?s Natural Curiosities, and in March the ultimate daredevil series, The Jonathan Goodwin Project, will explode onto Watch.
Source: BARB, All day, channel share based on Adults, programme data based on Individuals. All channel data includes 1. Data consolidated up to 25th December 2012.
*UKTV is an independent joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Network Interactive Inc.
Notes to Editors For more information, please contact:
Kerry Parker
UKTV Senior Corporate Communications Manager
kerry.parker@uktv.co.uk
0207 745 3036
Zoe Clapp
UKTV Director of Communications
zoe.clapp@uktv.co.uk
02072996259
@uktv_press
About UKTV
UKTV is a major industry player and one of the most important and successful multichannel providers in the UK. Formed in 1997, it is an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, and Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. (NYSE: SNI).
Attracting over 41 million viewers each month, the network consists of 10 distinctive channel brands ? Watch, Gold, Dave, alibi, Yesterday, Blighty, Eden, Home, Really and Good Food ? offering a broad range of quality programming across entertainment, lifestyle and factual. UKTV currently operates 25 broadcast streams when its eight multiplexes and five HD channels are taken into account, and 11 highly successful websites. The network also runs video on demand (VOD) services on Sky and BT Vision and is part of TalkTalk on YouView. In addition, UKTV recently launched its own ?On Demand? services with Dave On Demand and Yesterday On Demand.
UKTVs successful programming strategy combines high profile original commissions and key acquisitions with quality content from the BBC.
All UKTV channels are distributed on Sky and Virgin Media. Dave, Really and Yesterday are also available on Freeview.
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
20/10/2025
Inside TAMS: How Time-Addressable Media Stores could redefine sports workflows By Paul Markham
Friday, October 17, 2025 - 08:57
Print This Story
A penalty...
20/10/2025
Transformational production: Inside TVN's remote production push for the DFL...
20/10/2025
How NBC Sports Transitioned Stamford Facility to One Format: 1080p HDRMulti-year plan harmonizes workflows, simplifies operationsBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial ...
20/10/2025
NBA on NBC' Studio Production Team Is Ready for Tip-Off With Coast-to-Coast...
20/10/2025
Under pressure: TVN CEO Markus Osthaus considers the German sports broadcasting ...
20/10/2025
(L-R) Maria Dizzia, Carmen Emmi, and Russell Tovey attend the Plainclothes pre...
20/10/2025
In March, we launched Concerts Near You to help listeners find concerts from their favorite artists. Since then, more than 3 million people have used it to disc...
20/10/2025
Em diversas cidades do Brasil, um movimento tem se fortalecido para celebrar o poder, a beleza e a profundidade da criatividade negra. O Dia AMPLIFIKA, agora em...
20/10/2025
In cities across Brazil, a movement is growing that celebrates the power, beauty, and depth of Black creativity. AMPLIFIKA Day, now in its fifth edition, return...
20/10/2025
Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft rendering...
20/10/2025
DENVER and MUNICH Imagine Communications today announced its plans to acquire Pixel Power Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz. Financial terms of...
20/10/2025
LOS ANGELES G Morgan has joined Globecast, a provider of broadcast, media and entertainment managed services, as executive vice president of sales, Globecast Am...
20/10/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wisc. Heartland Video Systems and Zixi have partnered to enable broadcast-quality live video delivery over any IP network....
20/10/2025
A. R. Rahman on Facing Fear and Finding the Divine In an interview with Berklee President Jim Lucchese, the Oscar-winning composer reflects on how courage and...
20/10/2025
Monday 20 October 2025
To view this content, please enable our use of cookies. ...
20/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz transfers Pixel Power to Imagine Communications Companies work collaboratively to ensure continuity and ongoing support for existing customers...
20/10/2025
RT 's Prime Time is set to host the final Presidential Election Debate this Tuesday night, October 21, providing an opportunity to hear directly from Irelan...
20/10/2025
NVIDIA and Google Cloud are expanding access to accelerated computing to transform the full spectrum of enterprise workloads, from visual computing to agentic a...
19/10/2025
Back to All News
Sins of Kujo' Comes to Life in New Live-Action Series Set for Spring 2026
Entertainment
19 October 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to cl...
18/10/2025
New England Sports Network (NESN) has chosen Harmonic, working with Astound Business Solutions, as its enterprise technology partner to transform primary distri...
18/10/2025
NEW ORLEANS, La. In the run-up to the start of the NBA season, WVUE-TV and Gray Local Media have announced a deal with DirecTV that will greatly expand access t...
18/10/2025
Berklee Celebrates 40 Years of the Fall Together Concert Faculty composers Bob Pilkington and Greg Hopkins are among the featured artists for this year's ...
17/10/2025
NEP Group Receives New Equity Investment From 26North Partners LP, Co-InvestorsCarlyle remains the largest shareholder as the company prepares for the futureBy ...
17/10/2025
Apple Lands Five-Year Deal for F1 Distribution in the U.S.Besides airing on Apple TV, the sport will be amplified on other Apple servicesBy Ken Kerschbaumer, Ed...
17/10/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Marshall Electronics' Bernie Keach on the Future of PTZ Camera...
17/10/2025
L2 Productions' REMI Facility in Austin Can Produce Content From AnywhereMusic festivals, sports events are produced via flypacks and remote control roomsBy...
17/10/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
17/10/2025
(L-R) Christopher Meyer, Addison Timlin, Cooper Raiff, Lili Reinhart, Alyah Chan...
17/10/2025
M sica e arte se uniram em uma noite especial na semana passada na ZIV Gallery, ...
17/10/2025
Music and art came together for one special night last week at ZIV Gallery, an i...
17/10/2025
Spotify and FC Barcelona are extending our partnership through 2030, continuing a collaboration that's redefining how fans, players, and artists connect. Th...
17/10/2025
MURRIETA, Calif. The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC) has deployed DigitalGlue's creative.space storage platform to streamline video production by centrali...
17/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. Football continued to cement its reputation as a bulwark of TV advertising in Q3 2025 with new data from iSpot that showed both the NFL and coll...
17/10/2025
The Sports Fishing Championship (SFC), the premier competitive saltwater fishing series, has transformed its production workflow by adopting creative.space, the...
17/10/2025
QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning multi-camera video productions and remote contribution solutions, announces the release of StudioPro Version 4, ...
17/10/2025
Although the annual Grammy Awards celebration is best known for recognizing achievements in the recording industry, the show often proves a visual spectacle as ...
17/10/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leading provider of software-defined data storage and data services, has promoted Alex Dunfey to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) from his for...
17/10/2025
The University of Arizona (UofA) has significantly upgraded its broadcast communication infrastructure with the integration of Riedel Communications' advanc...
17/10/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that New England Sports Network (NESN), owned by Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, has selected Harmonic as its en...
17/10/2025
Austin PBS has recently upgraded its facility-wide communications infrastructure, deploying Clear-Com 's Eclipse HX, FreeSpeak II beltpacks, and V-Series ...
17/10/2025
ZEISS announces an open call for the closed BETA testing phase of CinCraft Virtual Lens Technology, the innovative digital tool that brings authentic lens chara...
17/10/2025
Situated in the town of Kokkola, Centria University of Applied Sciences offers higher education across five core fields: engineering, business, social and healt...
17/10/2025
Public information channel in Georgia, USA, to implement a powerful, simple, and cost-effective playout automation platform.
Pebble, the leading automation, co...
17/10/2025
HBO Max is reporting that it has launched in 15 new markets, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Macau, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Ukraine, boosting the streaming serv...
17/10/2025
Netflix said it will make a major push into video podcasts, inking a wide-ranging deal with Spotify through which it will offer 16 podcasts in the U.S. starting...
17/10/2025
Lexington, Ky. As part of a push to highlight its advanced advertising capabilities, Viamedia has launched a new AI-powered ad tech platform and officially rebr...
17/10/2025
NEW YORK QuickLink has announced the release of StudioPro Version 4, which the company is calling the most significant upgrade yet to its flagship video product...
17/10/2025
NEW YORK and CUPERTINO, Calif. Apple and NBCUniversal said they will sell Apple TV and Peacock streaming bundles to U.S. subscribers starting Oct. 20....
UKTV was the fastest growing commercial TV network in 2012
