The UK’s ITV has expanded its ITV Hub offering by introducing a tiered ‘freemium’ service that allows users to pay for enhanced features including not receiving adverts.
ITV Hub+ costs £3.99 (€4.70), and having run as a successful pilot on iOS devices only is due to be rolled out across more platforms and with the addition of new functionality.
ITV is the only commercial broadcaster in the UK to offer these settings, giving the audience more choice in how they spend their time watching ITV content. Hub+ is built into the current ITV Hub, offering viewers all of the content available on the service.
This Christmas ITV will introduce downloads on iOS devices, allowing Hub+ users the opportunity to watch ITV programmes on the Hub offline, or without an internet connection and making ITV the first broadcaster to launch a download service using Apple’s native streaming technology.
In the coming months, Hub+ users will be able to access their service on PC browsers and connected TVs.
The roll out of ITV Hub+ is one of a number of new initiatives planned for the ITV Hub in 2017. These include increased levels of personalisation, as well as investment in original and acquired content.
Commenting on the development, Paul Kanareck, ITV’s group director of online, said: “Viewers have always understood the trade off between paying to view content and watching adverts. With the development of the ITV Hub, we can now offer viewers a choice – to keep watching for free, or to pay to watch without interruptions if that’s important to them. We’ve moved from a single content proposition, as a catch up service, to a more comprehensive offering and Hub+ is a great example of what we can do to further personalise a user’s experience.”
The Hub was launched a year ago, replacing the previous ITV Player, and now has more than 17 million registered users, with half of all 16-24 year olds in the UK registered on the service and a billion long form requests in its first year.
Consumption (the measure of the number of hours watched) is up by 43% and live TV accounted for around 30% of all requests.
The ITV Hub is now available on 30 different platforms, having recently launched on Google Chromecast, and is due to launch on Xbox in the coming weeks.
