ITV consolidates its website and VOD player into new digital hub with focus on live streaming
The new ITV Hub will launch later this year and will see the broadcaster extend its digital reach.
ITV is to consolidate its website and catch up player into a single hub with live streaming of its TV channels at the heart of the new service,
The ITV Hub will launch later this year across mobile, PC and internet connected TVs and will be available for the first time on Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, and the new Freeview Play service. The desktop version of the service will merge ITV’s on demand pages and the show websites.
New branding has also been unveiled as part of the move and features a different colour dot surrounding the ITV logo. The colour palette is taken from the colour of each dot on the existing ITV channels- ITV, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV and ITVBe – as a way of showing the new digital hub is a centre of everything the broadcaster has to offer.
Episodes of Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy and American Dad will be available on the ITV Hub marking the first time the popular show has been available on a public service broadcasters on demand service.
Paul Kanareck, ITV’s director of online, said the ITV’s on-demand service has now “come of age, with live TV right at the core of our proposition”. He added that ITV’s “content offering has improved dramatically and we look forward to sharing further detail of our ambitious developments at The ITV Gala in November.”
Rufus Radcliffe, ITV’s group marketing director said the new ITV Hub and branding gave it a “distinct, digital look and feel building off the success of ITV's rebrand” and looked “forward to fully unveiling it later this autumn."
The new platform helps ITV build on the growing number of viewers who live stream its channels, which now accounts for over 30 per cent of usage on PC and mobile, and will help ITV better compete with BBC’s iPlayer.