ITV and Disney have struck a deal to show programmes such as The Bear and Love Island on each other’s video platforms, the first such deal in the UK and the latest sign of the changing content relationship developing between British broadcasters and US streamers.
Under the deal, ITV will begin showing the first seasons of some of Disney’s hit programmes – including the hit chef drama, the Star Wars spin-off Andor, Only Murders in the Building and reality shows such as The Kardashians – free of charge on its ITVX service from later this month.
In return, Disney will start offering ITV programming including all of Mr Bates vs The Post Office and the espionage thriller A Spy Among Friends at no extra cost to subscribers of Disney+. It will also offer Love Island: All Stars and a series each of Endeavour and Vera.
Under the initiative, which is being billed as a “Taste of ITVX” and a “Taste of Disney+”, each company will sell the advertising inventory around the shows they provide from their partner.
“This mutually beneficial alliance allows us to show our complementary audiences a specially selected collection of titles,” said Kevin Lygo, the managing director of media and entertainment at ITV. “For us, this deal means even more great content for viewers on ITVX, and even more opportunities for viewers to find and enjoy our distinctive titles and services.”
ITV has committed to spend more than £800m between the launch of ITVX in late 2022 and the end of next year in a belated attempt to create a national streaming champion fit for the Netflix era.
The broadcaster is targeting £750m in digital revenues, 2bn hours of annual streams and hitting 20 million monthly users by next year, as it seeks to transition from its roots and reliance on the declining linear TV market.
ITVX reported 14.3m monthly active users and 1.7bn streaming hours at the end of the year to March.
Disney+, which trails behind Netflix and Amazon in the UK, is hoping that the content provided by ITV will help boost older subscribers to its service, which tends to skew more towards children and families.
Joe Earley, the president of direct-to-consumer at Disney, said: “This innovative collaboration will allow us to bring Disney+ customers some of the UK’s favourite and buzzworthy shows and encourage ITVX viewers to discover some of Disney+’s award-winning series and blockbuster films.”
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Claire Enders, the founder of Enders Analysis, said that such deals are going to be essential for the UK’s financially outgunned public service broadcasters (PSBs) to build streaming services of scale.
“This is a big move in the UK market, it is becoming more of a theme in Europe now, and it marks a significant step forward in the right direction,” she said.
“It is part of an essential trend to keep PSBs here, particularly the commercially-funded ones, alive. Much greater licensing is tremendous for both sides, and competing with these popular American shows is costly, it is hard for British broadcasters to make this stuff. Deals like this have to become more substantial to make a lasting impact, but they will.”