Please wait...
Please wait...

Inquisitive preps UK quiz streamer

Inquisitive Media, the fledgling on-demand TV firm set up by the former CEO of Zodiak Media UK, is launching a UK SVoD service focused on “intelligent quizshow” content.

Rod Henwood

IQTV, which will aggregate episodes from UK series such as Mastermind, is targeting “superfans” of the genre.

The monthly, no-contract service, which comes as an app, will cost subscribers £3.49 (US$3.65) to access and will be available on iOS, Android and numerous other digital platforms.

IQTV has already secured an exclusive multi-year deal with BBC Worldwide (BBCWW) for streaming rights to Mastermind, Celebrity Mastermind, A Question of Genius and The Weakest Link, as well as exclusive rights to UK broadcaster Channel 4’s quizshow Countdown and Banijay Rights’ Only Connect.

The service, which will also include gameplay functionality enabling fans to watch and play along, will initially only be available to subscribers in the UK, but Inquisitive is planning international roll-out in the future.

Rod Henwood, co-founder and chairman of Inquisitive Media and former CEO of Zodiak Media UK, told C21 the company was attracted to the SVoD space from the perspective of scalability and “the ability to focus on beloved genres and super-serve those interests.”

“What you might think is a niche interest in the sense of a small number of viewers is actually a really significant, loyal audience,” he continued.

“When you look at the numbers, there’s about, at any one time, eight shows you’d call intelligent quizshows. That makes it a very well-defined proposition. The reach of those shows is about 12 million, and of those 12 million you’ve got about 3.5 million superfans.”

Henwood added that such shows often tend to play just once on mainstream terrestrial television and get “very little by way of further multichannel exploitation.”

“The market has not been saturated at all,” he said. “There’s a finite list of shows that enable you to earn the category, and audience demand that’s not been stirred before. The BBCWW deal was really the game changer – it’s high-volume, it’s exclusive and enables us to claim ownership of the category.

“We’re very ambitious for it and see it as a global phenomenon. We want it to grow to be a multi-territory, global proposition and the vision is to grow a quiz ecology.”

Inquisitive Media is an on-demand television and games company specialising in creating and packaging intelligent quizshows for the discerning viewer. IQTV was founded by Rod Henwood, Nick James and Marc-Antoine d’Halluin in 2017.

Please wait...