Drama box sets promised as STV adds 1,000 hours of new video-on-demand content

STV is adding 1,000 hours of content to its streaming service including drama box sets after signing a new deal.

Field of Blood - Murry Devlin (David Morrissey), Paddy Meehan (Jayde Johnston) and Dr Pete (Peter Capaldi). Picture: Neil Davidson

The Scottish broadcaster said the first batch of programming would go live before February and boost the “already impressive” drama box set offering on STV Player, with titles such as Ultimate Force, Field of Blood, Wild at Heart and Linda La Plante’s Commander.

The agreement also includes titles aimed at a younger audience, STV added, including reality show Chrisley Knows Best and Undercover Princes and Princesses.

The additional content follows the signing of a deal between STV’s video-on-demand service and All3media International.

Once all titles from the All3media International deal are uploaded, the STV Player will offer in excess of 2,500 hours of player-only content with seven live channels.

Richard Williams, managing director of digital at STV, said: “We’ve swiftly built an impressive catalogue of high quality content to rival video-on-demand services across the UK.

“Our partnership with All3media International will bolster our content across genres, enabling us to explore and release large parts of their catalogue over a 24-month period, constantly refreshing our player-only offering. We’ve had an exciting year of accelerated growth and our unprecedented viewing figures show us that this approach is delivering.”

Mike Gould, partnerships manager at All3media International added: “We are thrilled to be working with STV in this exciting new partnership, bringing such a range of high quality content to the STV Player.

“The All3media international catalogue continues to engage and entertain video-on-demand audiences around the world, and this deal is another example of our pursuit to reach users wherever they consume content in the digital space.

“We’ve been highly impressed with STV’s ambitions for 2021 and beyond, so I have no doubt this will be the start of a long and fruitful partnership together.”

Shore Capital analyst Roddy Davidson said: “We are encouraged by this development which adds further momentum to our positive investment case.

“The latter is centred on our assessment of STV as a tightly managed, dynamic and entrepreneurial business with strong operational momentum and a clear and consistently executed strategy for accelerating growth in digital and production (very strong demand backdrop) and capitalising on its dominance of the Scottish commercial TV market.”

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