ITVX hits billion views

ITV’s streaming service ITVX has reached one billion streams, less than five months after it launched. The last time ITV hit a billion streams, in 2022, it took seven months. The service replaced ITV Hub in the UK on December 13, and integrated programs from BritBox, the streamer it ran with the BBC. March represented ITVX’s best streaming month, with 282 million streams, up 100 million year-on-year. ITX offers dramas such as The Twelve, Without Sin and A Spy Among Friends. From its archive content, early 2000s drama Footballers’ Wives is the top performing show, with One Tree Hill the top U.S. boxset. Love Island and Unforgotten are also singled out as drivers.

‘Naked Eduction’ Maker Betty TV Hires Head Of Production
All3Media’s Betty TV, the UK behind the controversial Channel 4 series Naked Education, has its first Head of Production in five years in the shape of Bandicoot exec Emma Read-Wilson. She will begin her new role at the Wheeler Dealers and Fred’s Last Resort maker. At the same time Betty TV, which is part of All3 label Objective Media Group (OMG), is rebranding to add the ‘TV’ to its name and getting a new logo. Read-Wilson was previously a Production Executive at OMG. Betty’s Naked Education has been in the headlines in the UK in recent weeks after receiving nearly 1,000 complaints and caused Channel 4 content chief Ian Katz to reject claims of child abuse and pedophilia. In the show, naked adults present classes to teenagers to discuss body positivity.

UK Producer Firebird Options Korean Drama Format ‘Train’
BBC Studios-owned Firebird Pictures has optioned the remake rights to Train, a South Korean drama about a detective whose case leads him into two parallel universes, where he finds his love, gone from one world, very much alive in the other. According to distributor and Train rights owner CJ ENM, this marks the first time a Korean drama has been sold into the UK. Firebird is behind upcoming Prime Video series Wilderness, which stars Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Coleman, and Wahala, which Theresa Ikoko wrote for BBC One. “When we first saw Train we knew immediately that it had the magic combination of all brilliant television series: clever and propulsive story-telling of epic proportions, but with an utterly relatable and compelling emotional heart running through every scene,” said Firebird co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Kilgariff.

Storyglass & Audible Australia Prepare For ‘Sex Therapy’
Bertelsmann’s podcast division Storyglass has teamed with Audible Australia to launch Sex Therapy: Sessions with Chantelle Otten. The ten-part podcast launches tomorrow (April 18) and will look into sex and relationships. It promises to be “empowering, authentic and intimate.” Otten is a psycho-sexologist and relationship expert who founded Australia’s largest sexology practice. Audible Head of Content, APAC Karen Appathurai Wiggins said: “Having produced more than 100 Australian Audible Originals since 2017, we’re excited to be sharing Chantelle’s expertise and the real life stories relating to sex, intimacy, vulnerability and connection within this podcast on a world stage.” Deadline