The Bear and Andor coming to ITVX, Mr Bates v Post Office and The 1% Club head to Disney+
Disney+ and ITVX have forged a “first-of-its-kind” agreement to share content from each other’s service on their respective platforms.
Starting 16 July, a curated, and regularly refreshed selection of series and films movies from ITVX will be available on Disney+ and vice versa, under the respective banners Taste of ITVX and Taste of Disney+.
Disney+ viewers will be able to stream high-profile ITV scripted and unscripted content including true-life drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, espionage thriller Spy Among Friends, selected seasons of dating juggernaut Love Island, and historic library titles such as Endeavour, Vera, and series one of Karen Pirie, coinciding with the second series premiere in ITVX.
Other unscripted programming included in the pact are Olivia Attwood’s immersive series Price of Perfection and breakout global gameshow hit The 1% Club.
Concurrently, ITVX audiences will have access to a rotating rail of Disney+ shows and films, updated regularly from the US giant’s library.
Titles will range from the first series of FX’s The Bear, Star Wars original Andor and Hulu comedy drama Only Murders in the Building, while unscripted programming will range from The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and The Kardashians, and kids and families shows: Lilo and Stitch: The Series and Phineas and Ferb.
The series strengthens a longstanding licensing partnership between Disney and ITV, which brought Disney+ UK and Star originals to ITV viewers. In 2023, Broadcast revealed that comedy Extraordinary and FX/Star crime drama Under the Banner of Heaven would be heading to ITVX. This deal was swiftly followed by Welcome to Chippendales, Culprits and other UK originals Renegade Nell, Shardlake and the forthcoming Under the Bridge.
Taste of Disney+ and Taste of ITVX are available to each platform’s user at no extra cost and Disney and ITV will sell advertising against the respective pillars – ITVX is an ad-supported BVoD and Disney+ will sell advertising on the Disney+ standard with ads plan.
Unpacking the deal
Disney+ EMEA’s general manager Karl Holmes would not go into financial details of the arrangement, but told Broadcast that the new content swap deal is “mutually beneficial and mutually supportive”.
Disney will define success from the pact as: “does this enable Disney+ to grow”, he added, noting that, from the get-go, it would help raise engagement for Disney+ titles with audiences outside of its predominant female and younger-skewing demographics.
“This deal is innovative and at its heart it lets me take some of our most iconic content for adults and put it in front of an audience who would typically not consider Disney+.
“ITVX skews relatively old, and our heartland is under-55s. One of the challenges we have is that our brands are strong, but if you’re older you think that Disney’s about family and kids.
“At the same time, we get some of the UK’s biggest shows to put in front of our audiences – which are less exposed to traditional free-to-air content. That’s great for engagement.”
Holmes said the deal would likely be the first of several deals with FTA broadcasters in other markets, with Disney+ in “active discussions”.
“The deals won’t be the same, ITV has made a particular success of ITVX in the UK and that shapes the arrangement somewhat,” he added. “But, in general, we believe free-to-air broadcasters aggregate the biggest audiences and have the biggest shows, and therefore we would expect [to do more deals] and are in active discussions to work with more broadcasters in more markets.”
Kevin Lygo, managing director of Media and Entertainment, ITV said: “Disney are fantastic partners with a brilliant breadth of content. This mutually beneficial alliance allows us to show our complementary audiences a specially selected collection of titles, regularly updating, that gives a flavour of the range in our respective offerings.
“For us, this deal means even more great content for viewers on ITVX, and even more opportunity for viewers to find and enjoy our distinctive titles and services.”
Content plans
Holmes said Disney “would expect a similar number of titles to be exchanged at any point in time” and Disney+ would expect to provide around 70-100 hours of content at any given point.
“That is a small part of our library but the titles will be relevant [to ITVX audiences] at that point in time,” he said. “We would expect the number of hours we carry from ITVX would be a little bit higher, largely because their series tend to last a bit longer.”
He added that for ITV reality and entertainment titles, the deal represents a “relatively fast second window onto Disney+”.
“We would expect to make earlier series of franchises available at around the same time as we’re breaking new series,” he said.
“The audiences are complementary, so it makes complete business sense for streamers and free-to-air broadcasters to work together. The nature of this relationship is mutually supportive.
“We would expect Disney+ to grow and have more subscribers as a consequence. We would also expect ITVX to be more successful. That is not the same in all relationships between streamers and free-to-air broadcasters.
“We wish to be helpful and supportive to the ecosystems which exist in major markets across Europe because we think it’s good for consumers.”
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