ITVX celebrates second birthday as Britain’s fastest growing major streaming platform

• Fastest growing streaming platform in period since launch - 35% growth in viewing hours over two years
• Home of the biggest audiences in 2024 - ITV’s coverage of England vs The Netherlands in Euro 2024, and Mr Bates vs The Post Office which take the top two spots, plus I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! - the top rating entertainment show of 2024

ITVX turns two on December 8th 2024 and will celebrate this milestone with a host of audience records.

The streaming home of ITV has outpaced all other major streaming platforms in terms of growth in viewer hours since its launch - with a 35% growth in viewer hours in two years, ahead of BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Disney+, Channel 4 and Amazon Prime.

2024 saw huge audience traffic to the service across a range of content, from the biggest must-watch events streamed live to the best UK drama and the biggest, bingeable reality series in streaming.

Kevin Lygo, ITV’s Managing Director of Media and Entertainment said:

“Two years on, ITVX is now firmly established as a superior streaming destination, for a wealth of must-watch content.

There will be countless lists this month on the shows of the year, but let me say this ahead of them -  in terms of the most talked about programming, that resonated with the largest volume of UK viewers in 2024 - ITV has been the market leader.  Mr Bates vs The Post Office is the most watched UK drama of 2024, bigger than anything on any other channel or streamer. And when England defeated The Netherlands to make it into the Euro 2024 final, our coverage peaked with 21.6m viewers, that’s the biggest sporting audience of the year. Viewing to I’m A Celebrity in streaming has more than doubled since ITVX launched and the series opener has consolidated at nearly 11m viewers, making it the biggest entertainment show of 2024. And with 640 million streams since ITVX launched, Love Island is surely the biggest reality show in streaming, with UK audiences.

ITVX is the home of our biggest shows, but so much more too, with over 21,000 free-to-view hours of programming and films. We have transformed the viewer experience on ITVX, making it easier to discover, more accessible, more prominent and better to navigate - with an ever-changing mix of personalised content recommendations. And we have increased our investment in marketing and this has enabled us to reach more viewers more consistently, reacting to trends and preferences.

In short, we are very pleased with the incredible growth ITVX has delivered since its launch, as the UK’s fastest growing streaming platform over the last two years.”

The biggest total audiences of 2024

The biggest UK audience of 2024 is ITV’s coverage of England vs The Netherlands, which peaked with 21.6 million viewers across ITV1 and ITVX.

Mr Bates vs The Post Office is the biggest drama audience of 2024 to date, with a total audience of 15.1 million viewers watching the final episode of the four part series. ITV has had 4 out of the top 10 new dramas in 2024 - Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Red Eye, Until I Kill You and After The Flood - more than any other channel or streamer (BBC and Netflix both have 3).

ITVX - top performers in streaming

In the two years since launch ITVX has had 6 billion streams, growth of 77% versus the two years prior to launch.

Live sport has delivered some of ITVX’s biggest audiences - with ITVX’s five biggest sporting events, three Euro 2024 matches and one 2022 World Cup audience, attracting nearly 70 million streams combined. The 25 Euro 2024 matches on ITVX this summer attracted 133 million streams.

Looking at ITVX viewing alone, and based on streams to most watched episode - Mr Bates vs The Post Office takes the crown as ITVX’s most watched commissioned title of 2024, very closely followed by hit reality show, Love Island, and I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!. Drama thrillers Red Eye starring Jing Lusi and Richard Armitage and Trigger Point starring Vicky McClure complete the top five most streamed commissioned titles on ITVX since launch.

To date drama has been the biggest genre on ITVX, accounting for 1.5 billion streams. Red Eye, After The Flood, Trigger Point, The Long Shadow,  Joan, Until I Kill You as well as of course, Mr Bates vs The Post Office have all been popular streaming choices, for all these titles more than 40% of their total audience has come from streams through ITVX. In 2024, ITV began making major commissioned dramas available in the early morning on ITVX, ahead of their broadcast on ITV1 in the evening.

Reality is another huge genre in streaming and since ITVX’s launch Love Island has delivered a massive 640 million streams.

With 100 million streams to its catalogue on ITVX, The Only Way is Essex is another reality top performer, alongside Big Brother, which since coming to ITV in 2023 has also amassed 100 million streams, including streams to Celebrity Big Brother and Big Brother: Late and Live.

I’m a Celebrity tops the entertainment genre and it is currently enjoying its biggest ever audiences on ITVX. In the first two weeks of this year’s series it was streamed 53 million times, up by 23% on last year, and up 205% on 2021.

Coronation Street and Emmerdale have clocked up an impressive 600 million streams since launch, making them amongst the top performing titles on ITVX. ITV’s flagship continuing dramas have recently received their own dedicated destination on ITVX, with episodes dropping daily at 7am ahead of their evening ITV1 broadcast.

The huge wealth of content on ITVX now tops over 21,000 free hours, a significant increase on the 4000 hours available at the start of 2022. Amongst the deep rich archive of titles, top performing acquired box sets include Family Guy, One Tree Hill, The Originals, Love/Hate, Love and Death and The Twelve as well as UK series favourites including Vera, Midsomer Murders, Unforgotten, Benidorm and Broadchurch.

ITVX boasts one the UK’s biggest free to stream film libraries and top movies over the period including The Harry Potter Films with over 10 million streams, the Bond collection with over 6 million, and further blockbusters including Gladiator, Mamma Mia, Jurassic World; Fallen Kingdom and most recently the original Star Wars Trilogy and Rogue One also featuring amongst the highlight titles.

ITVX was one of the first UK streaming services to market with FAST Channels and since launch we have refined the offer to a top 12 channels,  including The Only Way is Essex, ITVX Kids and Sport, which are now delivering 60% more streaming hours than a year ago, with two thirds of FAST channel viewers under 55.

Streams to the dedicated news service on ITVX are up 29% year on year, with ITVX News attracting half a billion streams since launch.

Press Contact: Jenny Cummins Jenny.cummins@itv.com 07595 106670

NOTES TO EDITORS

ITVX Viewing 
Top 5 most watched commissioned programmes on ITVX, based on streams to most watched episode, since launch (excludes Sport) - 
1) Mr Bates vs The Post Office
2) Love Island
3) I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! 
4) Red Eye
5) Trigger Point

Top 5 biggest programme titles on ITVX since launch based on total streams to all episodes/matches in the period
1) Love Island and Love Island All Stars (over 500 episodes)
2) ITV’s soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale (over 1000 episodes)
3) Euro 2024 (25 matches)
4) Good Morning Britain (over 500 episodes)
5) Towie and Big Brother (over 400 and 200 episodes respectively).

Top 5 most streamed sporting events on ITVX since launch
1) England v Netherlands Euro 2024
2) England v France World Cup 2022
3) England v Slovakia Euro 2024
4) England v Slovenia Euro 2024
5)Spain v Germany Euro 2024