UKTV partners with YouView on catch-up services
UKTV, the media company, has signed a licensing agreement with YouView to provide a seven day catch-up service for free to air channels Dave, Yesterday and Really.
Launching in July the service will offer programming via a Dave branded online portal and directly through YouView, offering access to shows such as Dara O Briain: School of Hard Sums, Ross Noble’s Freewheeling and Storage Hunters.
It comes as UKTV reported strong growth over the past year to become the fastest growing commercial broadcaster in Britain.
Dave celebrated the second most successful week in the channels history last month, averaging a 1.64% share in week 22. This is up 45% (year-on-year).
UKTV’s CEO, Darren Childs commented “The UKTV network currently reaches over 42 million viewers a month and this agreement with YouView will make our award-winning programmes and channel brands available to even more viewers. Providing a catch-up service for our free-to-air channels on YouView is an important step for us, ensuring we give viewers the ‘anytime, anywhere’ access to our channels and programming that they want.”
Richard Halton, CEO, YouView said “We are pleased to welcome UKTV to our collection of on demand TV players. YouView is currently the fastest growing TV platform in the UK and we know that offering quality on demand content, from iconic channels such as Dave, Really and Yesterday, is key to giving our customers a great TV experience and makes our scroll back programme guide even more compelling.”