ITV enjoys box set boost
David Farnor | On 05, Jun 2022
ITV has enjoyed a quarter for its drama slate, thanks to a boost from its decision to take a box set-first approach.
Three out of the top four and six out of the top ten highest rating new dramas in the UK, across any channel and streamer, are from ITV so far in 2022. 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 (averaging 5.7m viewers) and The Ipcress File, which averaged a total audience of 5.3 million viewers.
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 per cent on the broadcast transmission.
The majority of ITV drama full series are now available for streaming on ITV Hub following the first episode initial broadcast, as ITV continues its digital-first strategy for key genres, in the run-up to launching revamped streaming platform ITVX later this year. 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 per cent year on year.