ITV unveils female-skewing channel

UK commercial broadcaster ITV is expanding its free-to-air family of channels with the launch of female-skewing ITVBe this year.

The channel will showcase lifestyle and reality programming from the UK and US, and will be the exclusive home of ITV’s award-winning series The Only Way is Essex.

It will also feature acquired content, including the US Real Housewives franchise, which currently airs in daytime on youth-skewing channel ITV2.

ITVBe will be wholly funded by advertising and sponsorship, and will be available free on all the major broadcasting platforms, including Freeview, Sky and Virgin.

The announcement comes exactly two weeks after ITV revealed plans to launch ITV Encore, its first pay channel on Sky’s platform and its first new channel for eight years.

ITV director of television Peter Fincham said ITVBe will complement ITV2, which will continue to air content for 16-34s.

“We identified an opportunity to develop what is currently part of the ITV2 schedule – reality and non-scripted shows, which are very popular with young women and housewives with kids – into a distinct channel proposition, aimed more squarely at that audience.

“ITV2 will continue to be the youngest channel in our portfolio, outside of [children’s network] CiTV, and the strategy of bringing more scripted series, both acquired and commissioned, will continue apace, alongside panel shows, formats and other young skewing commissions.”

The launch of ITVBe will see ITV’s family of channels expand to seven channels. The other channels in ITV’s family are: ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CiTV and ITV Encore.

The news comes in the same week that UK media watchdog Ofcom renewed the licences of ITV, STV, UTV and Channel 5 for a further 10 years from January 1, 2015. The decision prevents the licences from expiring at the end of 2014.