Strong start to 2024 for ITV Drama
April 12, 2024
ITV Drama has reported its best start to the year for six years with the top four performing new original dramas in 2024 all coming exclusively from ITV.
In the company’s first quarter (January – March 2024), across both ITVX and linear channels, ITV drama reached 44 million viewers which equates to more than 72 per cent of the UK population. On ITVX, there have been 273 million streams of drama content which is up by nearly a quarter on this point last year (+24 per cent).
Mr Bates vs the Post Office is ITV’s biggest drama since records go back, over 20 years, with an average of 14 million viewers and 24 million streams across the four episode series.
Trigger Point season 2 launched with 8.6 million and continues to grow its audience across the six episode series. The second series provided a big boost to the first and the two series together have had over 36 million streams. Season 2 is the most streamed drama on ITVX this year, whilst the first series is in fourth place.
After the Flood launched with 8.8 million and the series has been streamed 28 million times so far across the six episode series. Breathtaking launched with 5.9 million and the series has been streamed 7.5 million times.
Vera, now in its 13th season, averaged 7.6 million and all series have been streamed 15 million times on ITVX this year alone.
Polly Hill, Head of Drama ITV, said: “It’s been an incredible start to the year, kick started by the phenomenal success of Mr Bates vs the Post Office which continues to make us all proud of the good our drama has achieved in shining a light on this terrible miscarriage of justice. This was soon followed by the success of Breathtaking, which was yet another example of ITV telling a vitally important story about one of our public institutions.”