9th September 2024, Vienna—UKTV, the award-winning British broadcaster owned by BBC Studios, has selected XroadMedia, the leading personalisation and content discovery specialists, to provide content personalisation capabilities for its new U streaming app.
Earlier this summer, UKTV rebranded its VOD service UKTV Play to U and its free to air channels to U&Dave, U&DRAMA, U&YESTERDAY and U&W, in a move designed to connect its portfolio of free channels and its streaming service to aid understanding and content discoverability amongst its viewers. UKTV’s focus is now on ensuring content can be presented on U effectively, delivering highly personalised viewing for each user.
XroadMedia is working with UKTV to improve user management by utilising smarter segments to drive even more engaging experiences for U’s millions of registered viewers at every stage of their lifecycle. This includes cold starts, ensuring that even new users will be able to quickly find something to watch that they will love.
XroadMedia is also working with UKTV to deliver a dynamic UI filled with personalised content rows, mixing editorial curation and automated personalisation to enrich the content discovery process. These include editorial banners featuring curated box promo assets tailored to individual preferences, a “New to UKTV” row highlighting recent additions aligned with the user’s interests and rows like “For You”, “Because You Watched” and “Most Popular in Category”, offering AI-driven recommendations based on viewing history, user profiles and more. These personalised rows will adapt in real-time, ensuring that each user’s homepage remains fresh, relevant and engaging with every visit to U – at any time and on any device.
To further optimise results for defined KPIs and A/B tests, the product and editorial teams are using XroadMedia’s advanced analytics tools to better understand and act on results and trends, helping to continuously refine personalisation use cases, ensuring optimal performance and maximising the value delivered to viewers.
Declan Clarke, Head of Digital Products, UKTV, said: “We are delighted to be working with XroadMedia to enhance the viewers’ experience of our U Streaming app. They understand our business and approach projects with innovation, creativity and enthusiasm.”
XroadMedia’s Chief Executive Officer, Adolf Proidl, adds, “We’re ecstatic to have been selected and to bring our cutting-edge personalisation technology to UKTV as they prioritise their viewers. This is a core value for us at XroadMedia and the main driver for us to work closely with our clients to help innovate and drive user engagement, increase viewer satisfaction and ultimately contribute to the platform’s growth and retention goals.”
The first phase of the project will go live in November, but XroadMedia believes that personalisation should go beyond the UI. Therefore, the next phase will look at additional ways to expand UKTV’s personalisation opportunities and use cases.
Meet the XroadMedia team to talk about this project and other personalization opportunities at IBC 2024 on stand 5.B23. Book some time here.
About U
U is UKTV’s free streaming service, providing instant access to shows from UKTV’s free-to-air channels – U&Dave, U&DRAMA, U&W and U&YESTERDAY. Viewers can browse nearly 8,500 hours of programming – including exclusive content, award-winning originals, premiere acquisitions and iconic BBC programmes across drama, (Whitstable Pearl, Marlow Murder Club, Sister Boniface Mysteries, Sons of Anarchy, Mike, Madam Secretary, A Million Little Things, The Shield, The Bill, Classic EastEnders, Holby City plus upcoming series in 2025 such as Bergerac and Outrageous), comedy (Meet the Richardsons, Red Dwarf, Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, We Are Not Alone, Rosie Jones’s Comedy Disability Extravaganza), entertainment (Battle in the Box, Big Zuu’s Big Eats, David Mitchell’s Outsiders, QI, Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable, World’s Most Dangerous Roads), and factual entertainment (Katherine Ryan: Parental Guidance, Gemma & Gorka: Life Behind the Lens, Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over, MasterChef Australia, Katie Piper: Jailhouse Mums, Emma Willis: Delivering Babies, Secrets of the London Underground, Bangers & Cash, Orlanda Bloom: To The Edge).
U is available through the U app via computer, tablet or smart phone, or on television with Freeview Play, Amazon Fire TV, YouView, Samsung TV, Apple TV, Freesat, NOW devices, Sky Glass, Sky Stream, Virgin Media and Roku.
u.co.uk
About UKTV
UKTV has been at the forefront of branded television for over 30 years, entertaining the nation with programmes they love. Its leading brands – U&Dave, U&DRAMA, U&W,
U&YESTERDAY, Gold, Alibi and Eden – span comedy, entertainment, natural history, factual and drama, and are delivered to UK viewers through free streaming service U, Sky, Virgin Media, NOW, Freeview and Freesat; and to Irish viewers through Sky, Virgin Media, Eir, Vodafone and NOW. Channel & content availability varies by platform. UKTV’s content is also available to UK viewers via dedicated FAST channels on Samsung TV Plus, Amazon Freevee, Pluto TV and Virgin Media.
UKTV is a significant investor in British creativity and is committed to working with new and established writers, directors and programme-makers. The broadcaster is part of BBC Studios, the UK’s most-awarded production company, a world-class distributor with international branded services, and a commercial subsidiary of the world’s leading public service broadcaster, the BBC.
corporate.uktv.co.uk | press.uktv.co.uk | @uktvpress
About XroadMedia
XroadMedia was founded by leading specialists with over 20 years of experience in content discovery and addressable TV. XroadMedia provides innovative personalization solutions exclusively to media companies. Through dynamic user interfaces and by going beyond recommendations and the UI to engage every user at every touchpoint, we can help drive churn reduction, increase revenue and increase time spent. Create user experiences that show you know your users with targeted advertising, personalized notifications, tailored upsell offers and more to keep users happy in an ever-growing and changing market.
Delivering personalization to over 200M users for operators, streaming services and broadcasters globally, including Vodafone, A1 Telekom Austria Group, Claro and Three.
