The acquisition of a show more associated with Channel 4 has helped STV Player towards its best-ever month in streaming.
Brookside, was acquired in February. After just one week, the show became the fastest to ever reach 1 million streams on STV Player, and it has subsequently been streamed over 4 million times.
In total, STV Player recorded 11.6 million streams in March from viewers across the UK.
The free streaming service’s previous best-ever month was January 2021, when the UK was living through its third national Covid lockdown and TV streaming had surged across the board. STV Player’s VOD streams total in January 2021 was 10 million – meaning streams in March 2023 were up 16% on the previous record.
Richard Williams, Managing Director of Digital, STV said: “It’s great that the power of Brookside shows no signs of waning, with the show continuing to perform extremely well and also leading viewers to discover the wealth of fantastic content sitting alongside Brookie on STV Player.”
STV Player also experienced its highest-ever quarterly VOD streams performance in Q1 2023 with over 36 million streams of its extensive catalogue of content, mainly comprised of drama box sets from around the world. Irish crime thriller Redemption and Australian police procedural Rush were two of STV Player’s most-streamed dramas in Q1.
In Scotland – where STV Player’s catalogue also includes STV network content – March’s performance was boosted by the successful return of major crime drama titles, The Bay and Unforgotten. Both shows delivered higher audiences than previous series and were key drivers of growth on the platform.
