Friend MTS, the number one anti-piracy provider and video cybersecurity partner in entertainment, media and sports, today announced that ITV, the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster, has renewed and extended its partnership with Friend MTS to continue protecting ITV content from piracy.
Under the renewed two-year agreement, ITV will continue to use Friend MTS’ 24×7 Global Monitoring service to protect its main linear channels across broadcast and streaming platforms, with extended coverage of additional major events carried on ITV4. Friend MTS will identify illegal streams across the internet for immediate takedown, and facilitate the removal of links from primary search engines.
ITV’s decision to renew with Friend MTS builds on proven results since the partnership was first announced in 2024. Using its best-in-class global monitoring platform — which combines proprietary, award-winning fingerprinting technology and AI-driven automated detection systems, backed by a highly experienced 24×7 operations team — Friend MTS delivers comprehensive, highly effective monitoring and enforcement against content fraud, helping ITV maximise reach while protecting audiences from the consumer harms of pirate sites and meeting contractual obligations to rights holders.
Akhila Khanna, Distribution Director at ITV, said: “Our partnership with Friend MTS has played an important role in our ongoing work to make piracy unsustainable and protect the value of our content for viewers, advertisers and rights holders. Extending this agreement is a natural next step as we continue to optimise broadcast and supercharge streaming.”
Shane McCarthy, CEO at Friend MTS, said: “ITV creates some of the UK's most-watched content — protecting it is serious business. Over two years, we've worked side by side with their team to secure premium content across broadcast and streaming, and to make sure every advertiser impression lands where it should. We're proud to be the partner helping them stay ahead of the piracy threat.”
