STV Group (LON: STVG) said on Wednesday that it's STV player free streaming service kicked off 2021 with a record-breaking performance.
The group said total streams were up 115% with online viewing up 100% compared with January 2020. This has been attributed to drama boxsets proving to be a big success with viewers and STV player’s exclusive content and UK wide launch, helping to drive performance.
The platform delivered 12.5 million streams in January with 6 million hours spent consuming content throughout the month while the number of monthly active users grew 20% in January.
STV’s addressable audience also increased considerably after being added to Sky Q across the UK in December, which followed UK-wide launches on Freeview Play and Virgin Media earlier in the year.
The company's shares have risen over 4% so far during Wednesday’s session, priced at 345p.
“We spent much of last year working to ensure that viewers across the UK could enjoy the fantastic free content available on our platform, and we're delighted to see so many of them are now doing exactly that. Our strategy of constantly refreshing the service with new Player-only titles from around the world will continue throughout 2021, with a range of exciting content deals in the pipeline,” said Richard Williams, Managing Director of Digital at STV.