ITV says it plans to grow ITV Hub’s registered users to 30 million by the end of 2021.
The platform is already at 29 million registered users, 4 million more than in 2018, and monthly active users are up 37%, helped by compulsory registration on connected TVs.
As previously reported, the broadcaster is spending an initial £25 million on projects that include an addressable advertising platform for the streaming service. The money is going into supporting the data and ad proposition as well as enhanced development and distribution of the Hub and the repositioning of ITV2.
The investment is expected to rise to £40 million by 2020.
It’s needed against a background that has seen advertising revenues fall by 5%.
“The economic and political environment remains uncertain but we are very focused on delivering our strategy and creating a stronger, more diversified and structurally sound business to enable ITV to take advantage of evolving viewing and advertising opportunities,” said Carolyn McCall, ITV Chief Executive.
The premium ITV Hub+ currently has 500,000 subscribers and while the US/Canada version has 650,000.
ITV says the ad-free subscription version of the ITV Hub with content download capability has doubled the number of subscribers over the past 12 months, boosted by EU portability rules.
In April, ITV signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Amobee for end-to-end programmatic buying and selling of premium video inventory on the Hub.
