ITV Catch Up becomes ITV Player

ITV has announced a change of name for its on demand service to the ITV Player. It follows the recent agreement with BT Vision to include ITV content as part of its IPTV service.

The rebrand will be promoted through an on-air campaign that will go live on December 19. Ben McOwen Wilson, director of online at ITV, said the new identity and accompanying logo would create a recognisable and consistent brand for video on demand content across the web and TV. “It is part of our overall ambition to make our content as widely available for audiences through whichever platform suits them best,” he said. “With the massive growth of on-demand content across our online sites during 2008 it is more important than ever to create a brand that consumers recognise and associate with our content on which ever platform they are enjoying it.”

The current Catch Up service offer users a selection of ITV programmes from the last 30 days. Like its peers ITV Catch Up has seen a rapid rise in users, with the average number of plays per month increasing by 3,354% since launch.

For the consumer, the rebranding means they will be able to instantly identify the on demand offers of ITV, the BBC and Sky, with their online players respectively named ITV Player, BBC iPlayer and Sky Player.