Cookie Policy

Last updated: 07/08/2024

UKTV Media Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of BBC Studios, the principal commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corporation, operates a range of commercial websites. This notice describes how cookies and other specialist web technologies are used to support our websites and the options available to you.

To learn more about how we treat other personal data please read our Privacy Policy.

1. About Cookies (and Similar Technologies)

A cookie is a small text file that is automatically sent to your device where it is stored by your web browser. The cookie stores a unique identifier (a string of random characters) so that your browser can be distinguished from others and are often used to link your browser to databases that hold data about your usage and inferred interests, along with other data such as your IP address. They are used for various functions - from enabling the website to work, by recognising the same user as they navigate from one page to another; to analysing what content is viewed and is popular, through to personalising content based on browsing behaviour and interests.

Cookies may be stored by the website you are visiting (a “first party cookie”) or by a technology provider, such as an analytics company, advertising network or social media platform (a “third party cookie”). Third party cookies may be used to link your browsing behaviour across multiple sites. Cookies are either stored for the duration of your visit (a “session cookie”) or they will remain on your device for a fixed period (usually several months, or longer) to remember you across multiple browsing sessions (a “persistent cookie”).

Other types of storage, such as local or "HTML" storage

Websites and email communications may also use embedded code to record how you interact with them (recognising your browser via the unique ID stored in their cookie or your device “AdID”). They are often used to send data about your browsing to a third party, such as a social media company or advertiser to measure engagement with their content or to personalise ads or marketing.

Other tracking technologies, such as pixels

Tracking via Apps

Companies are unable to use cookies within Mobile Apps. Instead, they use unique identifiers associated with your device, such as the device Advertising ID (a random and resettable ID on your device), and other data such as your geo-location or your network location. This data is used in the same way as cookies, e.g. to analyse and improve services and to serve marketing and advertising to you (if the App is funded by advertising).

2. How Cookies are Used on Our Services

Cookies are used for the purposes described below. The specific cookies used by a service are listed and described in the cookie management platform for that service. This is presented to you when you first visit the website, when we periodically refresh the cookies used, and/or when we periodically ask you to review your preferences. You can also load the preference centre by clicking on “Manage Settings”, in the Account section of U apps and footer of the U website.

Cookie Purposes

Essential: these are cookies that are required to enable the effective operation of the service. For example, to enable you to navigate the service, to remember your cookie preferences, to keep our service secure and for system administration, such as preventing fraudulent or disruptive activity. Without these cookies the service may not operate as it should and so these are not optional.
Performance: these cookies are used to enable us to analyse and improve the performance of the service. For example, to help us to know how many users we have, which parts of our sites are most popular, what browsers are used (so we can maximise compatibility), the country or region where our users are located, and how long it takes for the site to load. This enables us to understand better who is using our site, and to improve and tailor our services accordingly. We might also use cookies to measure the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns (online and by email).
Promotions: these cookies enable us to show you marketing messages (or ads) on our Services and elsewhere online and allow us to understand the effectiveness of our marketing (for example, whether you viewed or clicked on one of our ads). We may use marketing technologies so that we can promote our services to you, which could be personalised to you based on your use of the service and/or your inferred interests. They also support social media features, such as enabling you to share our content via your social media account(s) and to embed content from social media platforms (such as video content). These companies might use cookies to provide these services or otherwise enable them to track your use of their services.
Advertising: this website features advertising, some of which may be personalised, which helps us to pay for creating and delivering content to you. For UKTV Media Ltd, the advertising on this website is managed on our behalf by our advertising sales partner, Channel 4.

Depending on your cookie and data settings, some of these Ads may be personalised based on information known or inferred about you and your interests. This personalisation helps us to show you more relevant Ads. It also means we can receive more revenue from our advertisers, allowing us to invest more in great content.

To create an ad profile for personalisation, unique identifiers (IDs) are used to tell your device apart from others – such as an ID stored by a cookie. You can opt-out from ad personalisation using the settings within the U website and app.

Our advertising is managed by Channel 4 using technology provided by Freewheel. The platform is driven by our own “first party” data that we have collected from you or your device. This data includes data based on what you consume when using our services (e.g. shows watched,), technographic information (e.g. device and time of day) and information you share when you register with UKTV. We then use this data to put you into cohorts with other users with shared interests (e.g. “travel” or “autos”). These cohorts are then used to select relevant Ads to show to you. We do not share your “cohorts” with advertisers or anyone else (except our contracted suppliers who process data under our and/or Channel 4’s instruction).

We will measure your response to our advertising using Adalyser. They will work with advertisers to understand whether the IP address that views an advertisement on U is the same IP address that carries out an action on the advertiser’s website. The advertiser does not have access to your data as part of this process.

We (UKTV and Channel 4) sometimes work directly with our advertiser clients to enable them to use their own customer data to personalise their ads. We also work with specialists to make sure real people (not bots) are seeing Ads, and to make sure our website is safe.

3. Third Party Cookies

We use a number of specialist companies to help us to run our services effectively and to provide marketing functionality, as described in the previous section. These technology providers use and control cookies on our services, which may be used for their own purposes, including for the purposes of tracking your browsing behaviour across multiple websites. We undertake checks to ensure that these companies keep your data secure and handle it fairly and responsibly.

Below we describe how we use the key technologies running through our services, with links to their privacy policies where you can find out more about what they do with your data. This is a list of the common technologies used to support our websites and other online services. It is not intended to be a comprehensive list. You can manage your preferences for these third party cookies via the Manage Cookies link in the footer of this website.

Full details of the technologies used on a specific app or website are provided in the cookie management platform for that service (available in the “Manage Cookies” settings within your Account on apps and in the footer of the website).

PROVIDER	CATEGORY	PURPOSE	MORE INFO ABOUT THE PROVIDER'S USE OF YOUR DATA
Piano AT Internet (ATI)	Essential	First party analytics to measure how our services are used to enable us to improve and personalise our services.	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Kantar	Essential	UKTV works with the Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB), an independent body which provides the TV industry with viewing data, to collect anonymous data from U. Their cookie (administered by Kantar Media, a research agency working on behalf of BARB) counts all the views of adverts and programmes on U across all devices. The data includes information on which programme or advert has been watched, when, for how long and on which device. The cookie sets a unique ID which is unconnected to your UKTV account to count these views.	To opt out of this cookie, click here: https://optout.2cnt.net/
24i	Essential	These cookies power recommendations within U. They are first party analytics to measure how our services are used and delivered to enable us to enable us personalise our services	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Brightcove	Essential	Provide video functionality	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
OneTrust	Essential	We use OneTrust as a consent management platform. This enables you to opt out of non-essential cookies (performance, promotions, advertising)	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Tealium	Essential	Tealium is a tag management platform that we use to make it easier to manage cookies from other providers (e.g. Google Marketing Platform)	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes
GoogleCast	Essential	We use GoogleCast to deliver the cast to TV functionality from Android phones to Chromecast devices and the Google TV platform	You can find out more about how Google uses data here. You can also opt out across all websites via your Google settings.
Mux	Performance	First party analytics to measure how our services are used and delivered to enable us to enable us to improve and personalise our services	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Google Firebase	Performance	Measurement of App Performance	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Amazon RUM	Performance	Measurement of App Performance	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Adalyser	Promotions	We use Adalyser to understand more about the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns and whether users have been exposed to them before downloading the U app or visiting U.co.uk (Mobile apps only).	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Appsflyer	Promotions	We use AppsFlyer to understand more about the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns and whether users have been exposed to them before downloading the U app or visiting U.co.uk (Mobile apps only).	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Google Advertising	Promotions	We use Google Advertising cookies to serve and to measure the effectiveness of our online marketing campaigns.	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Adalyser	Advertising	Adalyser is used to measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns that are served on U. This includes campaigns run by UKTV Ventures and Channel 4.	Provider acts as our service provider only and do not use your data for their own purposes.
Freewheel	Advertising	We use cookies from our ad-serving partner, Freewheel, to help us deliver more effective interest-based advertising and to monitor the effectiveness of these advertising campaigns. These cookies may store de-identified demographic or other data which is linked to data that you have submitted voluntarily to us. This may include your email address, postcode or gender, that we share with our advertising technology partners solely in hashed, non-human readable form. You can find out more about how we use your data for advertising purposes in our Privacy Policy.	https://www.freewheel.com/privacy-policy If you opt out of these cookies, you will still be served personalised advertising before and during programmes, as described in our privacy policy. Opting out of these cookies may lead you to see the same advertisements more frequently and may increase the number of advertisements that you see. To opt out of personalised advertising entirely, you will need to change your preferences in your account settings.

4. Your Choices

We will ask for your prior consent for the use of cookies and other specialist technologies. We will ask for your consent again if any new types of cookies have been added to the apps and / or website.

You can manage your cookie preferences by clicking on ’Manage Cookies’ in the footer of the website and in the ‘Manage Cookies’ menu in the Account section of our apps.

You can also choose how cookies (across all websites) are handled on your device via your browser settings including to block or delete all cookies or just third party cookies. Each browser manufacturer is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

These browser settings will also only apply on the device on which you change them. If you want to control the cookies placed on your browser across all of your devices, you will need to separately change your browser settings on each device. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences. Be aware that if you choose not to receive cookies at any time, our UKTV Digital Services may not function properly, and certain services will not be provided. Please note that, unless you have adjusted your browser settings (as set out above) to block or limit cookies, our system will issue cookies as soon as you visit our UKTV Digital Services via a browser. You should be aware that if you do delete your cookies, you will lose any preferences you have previously set.

5. How to Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about UKTV’s use of cookies please email us at: viewers@uktv.co.uk