Love Island is headed to Disney+ UK and The Bear will be served up on ITVX following a landmark deal that will see Disney and ITV carry “Taste of” versions of each other’s streaming services.
As part of the tie-up, ITV viewers will be able to watch Andor, Only Murders in the Building, The Kardashians and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives via a “Taste of Disney+” rail on ITVX. At the same time, a new “Taste of ITVX” rail will launch on Disney+ with the likes of Mr Bates vs the Post Office, Love Island, A Spy Among Friends and Vera.
Karl Holmes, Disney+’s General Manager for EMEA, told Deadline he “expects we will announce similar deals with other broadcasters [across EMEA] in the coming months.”
“We believe there is a mutually beneficial relationship here and we can reach free-to-air audiences in larger markets,” he added. “This will enable ITVX to be successful and vice versa and we can replicate this elsewhere.”
The partnership is a first-of-its-kind but is selective, with Holmes stressing only a tiny proportion of the Disney+ library will move to ITVX and vice versa – totalling around 70 to 100 hours to ITVX at the start and a little more going the other way. It is forward-facing, however. Disney+ executives have “set out the criteria for what we are prepared to offer” and will sit down monthly to decide which shows to move across, with content moving around every two months to keep things fresh. “We have a pretty regular release schedule so will want to promote new episodes of old shows,” added Holmes, who said most of the marketing of the deal will be “customer marketing or done in-app.” All shows will also remain on ITV and Disney’s respective UK services.
Selected seasons of Love Island, including the All Stars spin-off, will be available on Disney+ and Holmes said recent seasons could transfer pretty quickly after they conclude on ITV. “For ITV reality shows, we are talking about a very fast second window,” he said.
Disney+ will also become the first American streamer to carry Mr Bates vs the Post Office, the BAFTA-winning drama series starring Toby Jones that generated news headlines for weeks last year when it aired. Another BAFTA-winner, Disney+’s Rivals, which is produced by ITV Studios-owned Happy Prince, will not be available on ITVX as that one “has high awareness across the country already,” according to Holmes.
Holmes said the Disney+ and ITV audience bases are complementary, rattling off stats including that less than 10% of Disney+’s audience is over the age of 55, while for ITV the figure is around 40%.
“[ITV audiences] think Disney+ is about family and kids so this is a significant opportunity to put The Bear, Only Murders and Andor in front of that group in a contextually relevant place,” he added. “You won’t see The Bear or Only Murders across free-to-air services in Europe. The reason we think this works is because our audiences are so complementary. It wouldn’t work with the same demo.”
Concurring, Kevin Lygo, who runs ITV content, called the deal a “mutually beneficial alliance.”
Free-to-air VoD players and U.S. streamers will “come closer in the future,” Holmes said, stressing that Disney+ is actively thinking about these partnerships. It has certainly been a summer for these deals. Netflix and France’s TF1 struck a “new kind of partnership” last month that will see the former carry channels from the latter, while Amazon and France Télévisions did similarly for France Télévisions’ streaming service a couple of weeks later.
“There will be lots of different models that achieve a similar outcome,” added Holmes.
Disney and ITV have already proved successful bedfellows. ITV Studios produces and sells some of Disney+ UK’s biggest shows, including Rivals, Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and the upcoming Blind Date reboot, while ITV is already free-to-air home of Disney+’s Renegade Nell and Under the Bridge.
In terms of advertising, ITV Commercial will sell the advertising against “A Taste of Disney+” on ITVX, while Disney+ will sell the advertising against “A Taste of ITVX” on Disney+ Standard with Ads.
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