UK streaming service BritBox has secured its first 500,000 subscribers, joint owner ITV has confirmed.
The BBC-ITV venture reached the milestone in January and is ahead of plan. Meanwhile, BritBox US increased its subscriptions by 50% over the year and ITV now has a total of 2.6 million subscriptions.
Britbox UK made a loss of £59 million in 2020.
ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall said BritBox UK was seeing “conversion and churn rates tracking in line with our expectations”.
The launch of the new series of Spitting Image had driven a 10-fold increase in coversions from trial to pay with subscribers converting at a higher rate and subsequently having a lower churn rate.
Once on the service, subscribers were viewing archive ITV comedy, including the classic Spitting Image series.
Meanwhile, ITV Hub has suffered at the hands of the pandemic, with a loss in online viewing of 5% as the free streaming service found itself without the normal volume drivers of Love Island fewer soaps and no major sporting events.
