UKTV becomes first UK broadcaster with voice-enabled universal search on Amazon Fire TV

Taskmaster

Friday 24th November 2017

UKTV has become the first UK broadcaster to make its on demand programming quick and easy to find through voice-enabled search on Amazon Fire TV.

Viewers can find shows they love using their TV controls, by speaking into their Fire TV Stick with Alexa voice remote or the all-new Amazon Fire TV. Once they've found what they're looking for, viewers will be taken directly to the UKTV Play app to watch their selected programme.

The UKTV Play app was developed in-house by the UKTV Play digital products team and is home to catch-up and on-demand shows from UKTV channels Dave, Yesterday, Really and Drama. The new search functionality on Amazon Fire TV reduces time spent finding shows.

Since launching UKTV Play on Amazon Fire TV in 2015, views on the service have increased significantly every year. With popular shows such as Emmy and Broadcast nominated Taskmaster available on demand, views are up 322% year-on-year on Amazon Fire TV.

It was a two-stage process to integrate the UKTV Play app with the Amazon Fire TV universal search functionality. The UKTV digital products team worked with Amazon to integrate a feed of UKTV's free catalogue of shows which is updated every 24 hours to ensure that images, episode titles and descriptions for shows are current.

Once this work was completed, the UKTV Play app - available to download from the Amazon Appstore on Fire TV - was subsequently updated to work with the search.

The integration is now live and programmes on UKTV Play this month include Dara O Briain's Go 8 Bit, Dave Gorman Modern Life is Goodish and The White Princess starring Jodie Comer and Suki Waterhouse. Red Dwarf boxsets are also on there.

Notes to Editors

Taskmaster Image: http://bit.ly/2hMHdYe
UKTV Play Logo: http://bit.ly/2ArK4Br

For more information, please contact:

Ali Laurie, Network Communications Executive, UKTV

About UKTV Play
UKTV Play is an on-demand TV service providing instant access to shows from UKTV channels Dave, Drama, Really and Yesterday.

With the easy-to-use UKTV Play app you can browse and stream hundreds of shows for free via your computer, tablet or smart phone. It has never been easier to watch the things you love most, so download the app and delve in.

You can also put your feet up and watch on the telly, thanks to Sky, Virgin TV, Freeview, YouView, Amazon fireTV and Fire TV Stick. If you're an M+ subscriber on Virgin Media or a BT TV customer, shows from other great UKTV channels - Gold, W, Alibi, Good Food, Home and Eden - are also on the menu.

uktvplay.co.uk

About UKTV
UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching over 40m viewers every month.

The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market.

The network delivers inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories.

Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Worldwide and Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc. (SNI) - is proud to be the first British television broadcaster in The Sunday Times top 100 companies list.

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