UKTV Play undergoes rebrand

UKTV has announced a full rebrand of its VOD service UKTV Play.

The platform serves as the digital home of UKTV’s free-to-air channel brands; Dave, Drama, Yesterday and W.

The channel operator said that the rebrand will allow it to mark out its place in the increasingly competitive streaming landscape. It was overseen by UKTV’s head of marketing for UKTV Play Kate Rossiter and the digital products team that designed, developed and delivered over 200 assets for the rebrand over six months.

The most visible part of the rebrand is a new logo, but there are a number of other key features such as a new typeface, colour palate and animations. 

The rebrand comes ahead of the introduction of HD content to UKTV Play. From November, new content added to the service will be available in HD (720p and 1080p) delivered via adaptive bitrate streaming. Back catalogue content, for which a HD master exists, will be re-encoded in phases from mid-November onwards.

General Manager for Digital, Andrea Amey, said: “This rebrand marks the beginning of a real step change for UKTV Play. With over six million registered users and thousands of new hours of content being made available on the service this year, I’m delighted that our new brand creative unites our channel brands like never before and perfectly encapsulates UKTV Play’s warm tone and playful spirit.”

UKTV’s Head of Design, Peter Allinson, said: “Our task as UKTV creative was to refresh the UKTV Play brand by creating a distinctive design language that feels modern, compelling and digital-first. By bringing the brand promise to life and drawing users into the UKTV Play eco-system, we are now able to make viewers feel at home as they enjoy the brilliant mix of TV available on the service.”