82,484 incremental tune-ins
UKTV & Blis: Driving incremental linear viewing across the network
With streaming platforms competing for every evening, getting viewers back to scheduled Free-To-Air television is harder than ever. And traditional digital metrics rarely prove whether media actually leads to TV viewing.
- 82,484 incremental tune-ins
- 6% lift in viewing across the UKTV network
- 65% lift in tune-in for The Brokenwood Mysteries premiere
- 88% video completion rate
The challenge
UKTV needed to grow linear viewing across its network, drive tune-in for new show launches, and prove that digital media could deliver genuinely incremental viewers.
Working with Arena Media, Blis combined telco signals with Samba TV viewing data to reach the audiences most likely to change their behavior, activating across CTV, Online Video, YouTube, and Display around key launch windows.
Reaching nearly 3 million households, the campaign drove 1.5 million tune-ins, including 82,000 incremental viewers.
The solution
Rather than targeting existing heavy viewers, the campaign focused on growth, light, and lapsed audiences, where the opportunity to increase viewing was greatest.
Telco app data identified medium and light viewers of UKTV channels, while Samba TV’s ACR data found households based on real viewing behavior: top viewers of the target genre, light viewers of that genre on UKTV, and people who hadn’t watched UKTV in 30 days. These audiences were reached across CTV, Online Video, YouTube, and Display, timed around program launches and optimized throughout.
Measurement used Causal Machine Learning on Samba TV viewing data, comparing exposed households with a modeled version of the same households without exposure to isolate true incremental tune-ins.
The results
The campaign proved that digital media can measurably drive linear TV viewing at household level.
- 82,484 incremental tune-ins, from 1.5 million total
- 6% lift in viewing across the UKTV network
- 65% lift in tune-in for the Season 11 premiere of The Brokenwood Mysteries, driving 18,000 incremental tune-ins
- 88% video completion rate across CTV, Online Video, and YouTube for Brokenwood, against an 80% benchmark
In an increasingly fragmented viewing landscape, traditional digital metrics are no longer enough to prove real-world impact. By partnering with Blis and leveraging their sophisticated methodology, we were able to move beyond standard reach and frequency to demonstrate true incremental value for UKTV. This campaign proved that digital media, when powered by telco behavioural signals, can directly and measurably influence linear TV viewing behaviour at a household level.
Exposed viewers watched an average of three episodes, and Blis audiences watched more than those reached by TV promos alone. Light viewers, who made up 57% of impressions, delivered the strongest uplift: proof that focusing on the audiences with the most room to grow pays off.
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