11 Mar 2021 STV Player celebrates UK-wide rollout with major content drop Tagged in: Press Releases
  • Six new distribution deals bring 650 additional hours of content to the UK's fastest-growing broadcaster streaming platform
  • Major deals with Entertainment One and Sony Pictures Television boost STV Player's catalogue to over 150 boxsets - with series starring Margot Robbie, Thandie Newton and Martin Compston among the latest additions
  • STV Player now available on all major platforms and pre-installed in three quarters of the UK's connected TV homes
STV Player is celebrating its extended reach on all major platforms across the UK by adding over 650 hours of drama, true crime and factual entertainment programming to its already extensive catalogue of content.

The free video-on-demand service - which is now pre-installed in three quarters of the UK's connected TV homes - has signed significant deals with distributors Entertainment One (eOne) and Sony Pictures Television (SPT), which bring the total number of boxsets now offered by the platform to over 150, with around 50 of these being drama series.

The high-quality drama being added as part of the eOne deal includes both series of US thriller Ice, which stars Ray Winstone and explores the ruthless world of the diamond trade, as well as sci-fi spin-off Primeval: New World, Thandie Newton-starring crime series Rogue, and uplifting comedy-drama Hindsight, described by The New York Times as 'clever, affecting and sly ... somewhere between Beverly Hills: 90210 and Friends.'

The SPT deal brings glamorous period drama Pan Am - which stars Christina Ricci and Margot Robbie in one of her earliest roles - along with legal dramas Notorious and Canterbury's Law, and British three-parter The Ice Cream Girls, which follows the story of two teenagers accused of murdering their schoolteacher (Martin Compston).

Other titles from the SPT library include cult classic Hart to Hart, memorably starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers, with Nineties nostalgia trip Party of Five and chilling thriller Kidnapped also available to stream for free.

STV Player has signed additional new content deals with:
  • Beyond Rights - reality, medical and true crime programming, including Handsome Devils and Hitched in Vegas
  • Canamedia - property and paranormal titles, including Top Million Dollar Agent and Ghost Dimension
  • Flame - factual entertainment programming, including Canadian reality hit Drag Heals
  • Espresso Media - a series of gripping new true crime documentaries
Throughout 2020, STV Player launched across the UK on Sky Q, Now TV, Freeview Play and Virgin Media. North of the border, the platform offers Channel 3 network content such as Coronation Street and The Masked Singer, while in the rest of the UK it's exclusively a destination for over 3,000 hours of free drama, sport and fact-ent programming from around the world.

Four of last year's top ten streams on STV Player were Player-only titles, including the critically-acclaimed Irish legal drama Striking Out and US hit The Bridge. STV Player's audience grew by 68% in 2020, making it the fastest-growing broadcaster streaming platform in the UK.

Richard Williams, Managing Director of Digital at STV, said:'We extended our partnership with Sky at the end of last year, which means that STV Player is now available on all major platforms across the UK and our addressable audience has significantly increased. Dropping over 650 hours of new content seems like the perfect way to welcome our new viewers.

'Audiences are constantly on the search for the next great show to sink their teeth into, so it's fantastic that STV Player is now pre-installed on so many devices, ready and waiting to introduce viewers to over 150 unmissable boxsets for free.'

Media contact:
​Stephen Innes - stephen.innes@stv.tv

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STV Group plc published this content on 11 March 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 11 March 2021 07:39:02 UTC.