Record quarter for drama as ITV makes full series available to stream

Three out of the top four highest rating new dramas in the UK, across any channel and streamer, are from ITV so far in 2022

With many of the most popular dramas across any channel or streaming service so far in 2022, ITV has had a very strong start to the year in scripted.

New, recently released 28 day consolidated data for The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe shows that the total audience for the first episode rose by a massive 5.4 million viewers in the 28 days after the initial broadcast, with the four-part series as a whole averaging a total audience of over 9 million viewers, up by 5.1 million/123% on the broadcast transmission.

Written by acclaimed screenwriter Chris Lang, and starring Monica Dolan and Eddie Marsan, The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe told the story of the Hartlepool based couple and their infamous insurance scam and gained critical acclaim from reviewers. In total ITV has shown three out of the top four dramas across any channel or streamer in 2022, and six out of the top ten new dramas, and all have more than doubled their audience in the 28 days after their initial broadcast. 

These include Including Trigger Point, ITV’s biggest drama so far in 2022, which averaged a total audience of 9.5 million viewers, Our House which averaged a total audience of 7.4 million viewers and No Return, which averaged a total audience of 6.5 million viewers, as well as DI Ray (currently averaging 5.7m viewers) and The Ipcress File, which averaged a total audience of 5.3 million viewers.

The majority of ITV drama full series are now available for streaming following the first episode initial broadcast, as ITV continues its digital-first strategy for key genres, in the run-up to launching ITVX in Q4. This has helped drive the best ever start to the year for drama viewing online with 125 million streams for the four months to the end of April, up 8% year on year.

ENDS