UKTV Originals watched in record numbers in 2017

UKTV Original Murder On The Blackpool Express has been watched by over 1.8 million viewers

Emmy-nominee Taskmaster, Red Dwarf and Live Boxing in the years top original shows

Sharp 75% increase in views to UKTV Play, the networks free on demand service

Eight of Daves top 10 shows in 2017 were UKTV Originals

Dave and Drama remain the top non-public service broadcaster channels in the UK

UKTV Original Murder On The Blackpool Express, starring Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson, has been watched by over 1.8 million viewers, helping to drive Golds biggest growth in thirteen years

International Emmy nominee, Taskmaster, named the most watched show on UKTV Play, which saw a 75% increase in views year on year. For the first time ever, UKTV Play generated 100 million views in a year

Recorded highest ever Christmas day share

Wednesday 3rd January 2018 UKTVs strategy of investing in UKTV Originals continues to deliver results. The multi award-winning broadcaster has secured record ratings for UKTV Originals on linear TV. UKTV Play has also seen a 75% increase in views year on year.

Darren Childs, CEO, said: Were creating our own IP through UKTV Originals at a greater scale than ever before, and thats allowed us to drive on demand viewing to new highs, as well as bringing new audiences to linear television.

Our new and exclusive shows are driving audiences to our fastest-growing brand, UKTV Play. That ensures we can offer advertisers data-driven targeted advertising on demand, as well as advertising to mass broadcast audiences through our large, established, linear broadcast channels.

While the competitive challenges remain significant in television, were continuing to invest in creative storytelling and brilliant entertainment that our viewers love, and that makes me optimistic for the future.

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 and acquisitions from BBC, C4, ITV and more.

UKTV Originals

A five-fold increase in the number of UKTV Original Productions over the past five years has led to more original shows than ever before, and there are 50 currently in production. Top UKTV Originals this year include Murder On The Blackpool Express (1.8m Total Consumption); Red Dwarf XII (2.04m) and International Emmy nominee, Taskmaster (1.4m).

The broadcaster worked with three times as many independent production companies in 2017 than in 2016 and across three times the number of genres, including comedy, entertainment, factual and sport, reinforcing UKTVs position as a significant investor in the UK creative industry.

Leading the commissioning drive was Dave. The channels critically acclaimed UKTV Originals brought in younger audiences, taking eight of the top 10 slots in the channels ratings list for 2017 and bringing millions of users into TV on demand service UKTV Play.

Top shows on Dave, in addition to Red Dwarf and Taskmaster, include Taskmaster: Champions of Champions, Dave Gorman Modern Life is Goodish, Dara OBriains Go 8 Bit, Live Hayemaker Ringstar Fight Night, Zapped and Red Bull Soapbox.

In June, UKTV signed a TV rights deal with Hayemaker Ringstar, the three-year deal for Dave will see five fight nights broadcast free of charge per year. The next fight night will be on the 16th February.

TV On Demand

UKTV Play is the broadcasters fastest growing brand and in 2017 recorded another hugely successful year with direct-to-consumer views up 75% year on year. October saw UKTV Plays best month ever, driven by UKTV Originals, Taskmaster and Red Dwarf XII, contributing to 21% and 10% of the months views respectively.

Taskmaster is also the best performing programme on UKTV Play year to date, with the preview of episode seven of the fifth series becoming the best performing preview ever on UKTV Play.

Red Dwarf XII had a fifth more viewers (20%) for the 7-day preview versus the previous series.

UKTV Play continued to grow and launch on new platforms. This year, all shows on UKTV Play were added to Amazon Fire TVs Universal Search - the first broadcaster in the UK to do so. 1,000 hours of catch up TV also became available to Virgin Media Ireland customers, and in June, all UKTV channels became available via UKTV Play in the Catch-up section of Sky and Sky Q. This resulted in performance on Sky On Demand increasing by 55% against the yearly average.

TV Channels

Britains favourite comedy channel Gold grew by 2% share, its success driven by original comedy Murder on The Blackpool Express, now watched by over 1.8 million viewers as well as The Story of Only Fools and Horses and David Jason: My Life on Screen. In September, UKTV Original Henry IX won a prestigious Rose DOr award for Best Sitcom.

Really had a brand refresh early last year, which, alongside UKTV Originals Helicopter ER and Cops UK: BodyCam Squad, has contributed to an 11% growth year on year for the channel.

Drama, which shows mainly BBC content, grew in 2017 by an impressive 7% share. Peaking with a daily share of 1.93%, the channel exceeded half a million viewers on 45 occasions with popular BBC shows Inspector George Gently, New Tricks and Father Brown bringing in big audiences. Death in Paradise consistently proves popular with one episode drawing 670k.

This success is also boosted by the success of The White Princess which has been watched by 1.06m viewers. Series four of The Brokenwood Mysteries has also been watched by an audience of 823k since launch.

The highest rated commission on W this year was UKTV Original, Inside the Ambulance, peaking at 276k, which has more than doubled the slot average and series on series, has grown by 26%.

Brand new original programmes coming to UKTV in January include the launch of high-octane gameshow The Wave fronted by Rylan Clark-

LINK:	https://corporate.uktv.co.uk/news/article/uktv-originals-watched-recor...
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