UKTV celebrates most watched day and week in its history

24 April 2014

UKTV achieved its highest ever share this Easter Sunday with 7.13%

Week 16 was the network's biggest week since its inception

Easter weekend was up 21% year-on-year

Multi-award winning broadcaster, UKTV has celebrated its biggest Easter and most successful day in its 21-year history with the 10 channel network achieving a record-breaking share of 7.13% on Sunday.

Official Barb data* has confirmed that UKTV's share over the Easter Bank holiday weekend was up 21% year-on-year, growing from 5.32% share in 2013 to 6.45% share. The record weekend stats followed UKTV's most successful week since its inception with the network achieving a share of 6.05% last week (week 16).

UKTV's Chief Executive, Darren Childs said,

Our growth strategy is paying dividends with UKTV celebrating its best week and best day ever. In 2014, UKTV will invest more in content than ever before, giving viewers even more great reasons to spend time with us.

UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. - reaches over 42 million viewers a month and has the most watched non-PSB channel with Dave. The popular entertainment channel, known for its irreverent and witty programming achieved a 1.67% share over the Easter weekend, followed by Drama with 1.16% share and Yesterday with 1.05% share.

The network's entertainment and lifestyle channel Really had the biggest percentage share growth compared to Easter 2013, up 21% year-on-year. Crime channel Alibi (up 13%) and flagship pay channel Watch (up 8%) also enjoyed year-on-year growth.

Storage Hunters was UKTV's top performing show with the best rating episode attracting 554k viewers. Films also performed strongly with Men in Black peaking with an audience of 328k across two broadcasts and King Arthur peaking at 286K on Watch. Alibi's highest rating programme was brand new Murdoch Mysteries snaring an audience of 184k and Gold viewers flocked to iconic comedy Only Fools & Horses with the best-rating episode attracting 182k.

UKTV's VoD services are also achieving record-breaking growth. In February total views are up 40% month-on-month and up 586% year-on-year due to the expansion of the network's services.

About UKTV UKTV is the multi-award winning media company that reaches over 42 million viewers per month.

UKTV's ten imaginative channel brands - Watch, Dave, Gold, Alibi, Eden, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home and Good Food - include the most watched non-PSB channel, the most watched channel in the Factual genre and the most watched channels in the Lifestyle genre (Pay and Free). The company's most recent financial results showed a record-breaking year-end revenue of £262m, and operating profit at £71m.

UKTV has a truly innovative model, curating brand-defining commissions, high-profile acquisitions and the very best of BBC and Channel 4 content, and embracing technology to deliver inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT TV, TalkTalk, YouView, plus direct On Demand digital services. The network distributes its highly valued programmes to 200 territories around the world and supplies Sky with more hours of HD content than anyone else.

Now celebrating its 21st year at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the only British broadcaster to be recognised by Best Companies.

corporate.uktv.co.uk / press.uktv.co.uk / @uktv_press

LINK:	http://corporate.uktv.co.uk/news/article/uktv-celebrates-most-watched-...
	See more stories from uktv

Most recent headlines