STV is Scotland’s home of news, entertainment and drama, serving audiences with quality content on air, online and on demand.
STV’s broadcast channel, accessible free-to-air on all the main TV platforms in Scotland, reaches 3.2 million viewers each month. It is home to some of the most popular shows on television, including iconic soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale; entertainment hits The Masked Singer, Britain’s Got Talent and I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here; gripping dramas; and a wide-ranging selection of home-grown productions. Flagship news programme STV News at Six continues to grow its audience share and is the best-watched news programme in the country.
STV Player
STV Player is the UK’s fastest-growing broadcaster streaming service, giving viewers in Scotland the opportunity to watch their favourite STV shows, live or on demand. Across the UK, the service offers viewers an extensive catalogue of content from around the world, including over 3,000 hours of high-quality drama, sport and factual entertainment series.
STV Player is now pre-installed in three quarters of the UK’s connected TV homes and is available on all major platforms, including Sky Q, Now TV, Virgin Media, Amazon Fire TV and Freeview Play.
STV Player’s content library has grown to over 150 boxsets, including US thriller The Bridge, Irish legal drama Striking Out and Australian eight-parter The Slap. Viewers can upgrade to STV Player+, a subscription service which offers the opportunity to watch Player content advert-free, download shows for offline viewing, and also watch them abroad.
STV Studios
STV Studios is one of the UK’s leading content businesses and is Scotland’s biggest production company. Led by David Mortimer, the company has an impressive track-record of success across drama, entertainment and factual, with commissions spanning BBC One and Two, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BBC Scotland, Discovery, VH1/MTV and Sky One.
Most recently, STV Studios has been in production with a new six-part prison drama for Channel 4, Screw, on air in early 2022. Genre-bending immersive competition series Murder Island was commissioned by Channel 4 and aired in autumn 2021, while 25 episodes of new daytime quiz format The Bridge of Lies have been commissioned for BBC One following a highly competitive pitch process.
Other unscripted formats include 24 series of Antiques Road Trip and 10 series of Celebrity Antiques Road Trip for the BBC; six series of Catchphrase and six of Celebrity Catchphrase for ITV; and three series of The Yorkshire Auction House for the Discovery-owned Really channel. The factual team is also responsible for Dave series, British As Folk, and one of BBC Scotland’s most popular shows, Inside Central Station.
Previous successes include TV film Elizabeth is Missing for BBC One which aired in December 2019. The drama achieved a 5.5m consolidated audience, received numerous five-star reviews, and its star Glenda Jackson won the leading actress BAFTA and International Emmy in 2020.
STV Studios also produced critically-acclaimed thriller The Victim for BBC One in April 2019, which was watched by more than 7.2m viewers and saw leading actress, Kelly Macdonald, win a BAFTA Scotland award later that year.
In 2019, STV Studios acquired a majority stake in Primal Media, the award-winning unscripted producer behind Channel 4’s Home Free and Jerk for BBC Three. Primal was commissioned in July 2020 to produce Landmark, a major eight-part factual entertainment series which aired on Sky Arts in September 2021.
STV Studios has a minority stake in high-end drama producer Two Cities (makers of Patrick Melrose for Sky Atlantic) and unscripted label, Hello Mary. It is also the home of Tod Productions – the drama company launched by award-winning producer Elaine Collins – and Barefaced TV, renowned for producing quirky and original factual entertainment.