Exclusive: UKTV CEO on how broadcaster weathered storm of 2023 to achieve significant growth

Annika S2 was UKTV’s most-watched show of 2023 (Source: UKTV)

While the past year has been marred by ad market downturn and all-round rising costs, BBC Studios-owned UKTV has made significant gains during these challenging 12 months. Mark Layton talks to UKTV CEO Marcus Arthur about how the broadcaster weathered the storm and its plans for future growth.

UKTV announced today that it achieved record growth during 2023, with views to its free streaming service UKTV Play rising by 56% in the last year, which dwarfed the 27% by which it grew in 2022.

Meanwhile, audience share for the seven-channel network was up to 4.92% – a 5% rise on the prior year. UKTV’s SOCI (share of commercial impacts – with one impact equating to one advert viewed by one person once) also reached 8.81% during 2023, the highest ever for its channels, in what has been a difficult year for the TV industry all-round.

Marcus Arthur, CEO of UKTV & president of UK Distribution for BBC Studios, tells TBI that these successes lie partly in that the company saw the storm on horizon, and prepared for it.

“In part, we saw it coming. I think we were the only speakers at the Edinburgh conference the year before last that were saying there’s a big ad market hit coming and we prepped for that by investing heavily in our VOD, knowing that was going to be one of our ways out of it.”

This investment has kept the ship steady, says Arthur. “Unlike most other TV companies, our revenue year-on-year will be broadly flat, because our VOD growth has largely made up for what the linear decline was.

“So where other people are seeing their worst revenue numbers for 15 years, since the last big ad recession, we’ve weathered a lot of that storm.”

Marcus Arthur (Source: UKTV/David Cummings)

Still great value in linear

Arthur’s current focus is on growing the VOD side of the business and turning UKTV into a “digital-first and audience-led” company. Since January 2023, UKTV has brought 31 new people into the VOD business to facilitate this – representing a 10% expansion for the roughly 300 staff company.

The most recent move was the promotion of general manager for digital Andrea Amey to chief digital officer, as reported exclusively by TBI last week.

But that doesn’t mean linear is getting left behind, far from it: “We’ve got a very simple strategy. We want to be the biggest non-PSB and to provide content that’s got a real personality and tone of voice to it,” says Arthur. “To do those things, unlike some other people, we want to continue to grow our linear, so we’re not disinvesting there.”

UKTV’s seven linear channels include Dave, Drama, W, Yesterday, Alibi, Eden and Gold, and Arthur tells TBI that it is a stable he is open to expanding.

“I have a fundamental belief that people are calling the demise of linear, from a revenue point of view, much quicker than it will happen. If there was an opportunity to buy television linear assets, just now, I would buy them.

Berlin Station (Source: UKTV)

“When we say we want to be the biggest non-PSB, we want to bigger than [Comcast-owned] Sky and then knocking on the door of [Paramount’s UK broadcaster] Channel 5; to do that we need linear [ad] share to be 11% – we’re at about 9% now. We will look at opportunities to grow organically and we will look at opportunities to grow mechanically, so that we can grow that linear.”

Arthur acknowledges: “Linear is challenged, money is moving, and we all need to prepare for the future, but there’s still a really important business to maintain underneath that, because you need those revenues to [build upon].”

Another way in which UKTV has been preparing for the future is via its August move into FAST, with the launch of four channels on Samsung TV Plus, Amazon Freevee and Pluto TV, carrying content such as Inside the Ambulance and Hypothetical from FTA channels Dave, Drama, W and Yesterday.

Arthur tells TBI that UKTV has been “deliberately slow” in moving into FAST, due to the strength of its channels brands and how it is trying to grow its VOD service. “But we’ve launched the four channels this year and we are happy with how they have launched. What we need to do now is just learn from them.”

He says that once these FAST channels are bedded in, UKTV will seek to grow their revenues and use them to complement their other services. “At some point we will put those FAST channels on to UKTV Play,” reveals Arthur, adding that they will also explore taking the channels international, and look at UKTV franchises that could support standalone FAST channels.

Sister Boniface Mysteries (Source: UKTV)

“Very clear originals strategy”

The shows leading these increased viewing numbers in 2023 included the second season of Alibi crime drama Annika, which was UKTV’s top-performing show of the past 12 months, watched by 1.29 million people.

Other high performers included Meet The Richardsons on comedy-skewing Dave, Sister Boniface Mysteries on Drama and Blackadder: The Lost Pilot on Gold.

Scripted drama titles drove the highest amount of traffic to VOD platform UKTV Play, with originals Signora Volpe, Mrs Sidhu Investigates, Sister Boniface Mysteries, Berlin Station, Atlantic Crossing, Annika, The Brokenwood Mysteries, Madam Secretary and Smother all featuring in the top 20 highest rating episodes on the service.

UKTV spends about 40% of its budget on commissioning and the company has a “very clear originals strategy” says Arthur, with the commissioning team focusing on shows that will drive traffic to both the linear channels and UKTV Play.

“We will commission more this year than we did last year, and our content spend will be up” Arthur tells TBI, though declines to share a precise number.

He points to Drama series The Marlow Murder Club, from Death In Paradise creator Robert Thorogood, the Dave remake of Korean gameshow format Battle In The Box, and docuseries Katherine Ryan: Parental Guidance for W as upcoming shows he expects to appeal on both the linear and digital sides of the business – with all set to also appear on the VOD service.

Arthur also notes that “when you’ve got real winners, you keep them,” and that he’d “love to do more” Annika and return other high performing titles.

Signora Volpe (Source: UKTV)

Forging the future

If the past year has been about growth for the company, the coming months will also be about refocusing the UKTV name for the future under a new ‘masterbrand’, which was announced in November.

Summer 2024 will see UKTV Play transition to U and UKTV’s family of free-to-air channels will become U&Dave, U&DRAMA, U&YESTERDAY and U&W. Pay channels Alibi, Gold and Eden will transition to U&alibi, U&GOLD and U&eden at a later date.

Arthur tells TBI that this change has been a long time coming: “We had two problems: on our free to air channels, there was no common identifier used before the channel name that let people know there was a family.

“So even after all the years of us promoting UKTV Play, only about 40% [of people] recognised that UKTV Play was the VOD service for Dave. What we’re trying to do with U is connect our channel brands, so when you look down an EPG, you see for the first time that ‘U&’ in front of all of them, you see it is a family.

“Secondarily and more importantly, we’re hoping to use that common branding across our channels, so that we make a much stronger connection to the VOD platform and forge the future,” he says.

Looking a further 12 months into that future, Arthur wants to build upon the successes reported today. He tells TBI that by January 2025 he would like to have further increased UKTV’s SOCI and to achieve “at least” double digit growth on UKTV Play, seeing single digit growth “as a failure.”

He also aims to have added another 1,000 hours to the VOD service, which currently boasts more than 7,000 hours of content.

“Even though things are really hard – it’s hard for us too – you can see us getting better and you can see us progressing and making the move that everybody talks about,” adds Arthur. “Because we’re only 300 people, you can see that change, and you see it every day, and it gives you confidence that you’re on the right path.”