Variety: U.K. Streaming Platform ITVX to Launch in November

Story from Variety:

ITVX, the upcoming streaming platform from U.K. broadcaster ITV, will launch in November.

ITV managing director for media and entertainment Kevin Lygo confirmed the launch date during a panel at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday afternoon.

It will replace ITV’s current streaming platform ITV Hub.

“The content that will be commissioned specifically for this, and [bought] in from America for this” will be “edgier” and viewed as an accompaniment to the traditional linear channel said Lygo.

He promised hundreds of thousands of hours of acquisitions including films thanks to “huge deals with movie studios” the network has done. He also said “there will be a new programming event dropped on to the service exclusively” regularly.

As well as news, entertainment, films and comedy there will be boxsets and other shows.

“I think this way we’ll be using the programming to better effect,” he said of the plan to premiere shows on ITVX months before they TX on linear.

In recent months ITV has announced plenty of new commissions and acquisitions for the platform, including “The Winter King,” which is based on the “Warlord Chronicles books, comedy drama “Significant Other,” and “Big Brother.”

“There are lots of people now who don’t have an arial who are watching live ITV through [ITV] Hub,” said ITV’s chief financial officer Chris Kennedy earlier this year. “We saw that last year with Euros [the UEFA European Football Championship]: really big audiences watching live sports on the ITV Hub and we envisage that trend continuing on ITVX.”