Walks Around Britain was first broadcast on Community Channel – now Together TV – at 9pm on Friday 22nd January 2016. Since then, the series has been broadcast on a total of 26 channels in the UK, as well as broadcast terrestrially in the US, Austrilia and New Zealand. The series has also been available in the past on board Virgin Trains, and currently on Amazon Prime Video.
To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the first TV broadcast, Walks Around Britain announces today a raft of new projects for 2021.
- The first AVoD Smart TV app from a British non-broadcaster brand
- A new radio series
- A brand new subscription-based smartphone app
- Continued production of the TV series throughout the Covid crisis
The Advertising Video On-Demand (AVoD) Smart TV app will be available in a 170 countries on all the major TV platforms and will provide free access on demand to all the editions of the Walks Around Britain TV series, along with the regular podcast and the new radio series too. It will be available in February,
The new radio series will build on the successes of the television series and will feature presenter Andrew White being joined by a guest on a walk that means something to them; talking about the landscape, the power of walking and basically enjoying the craic along the way.
The radio series will run alongside the production of the sixth season of the television series, and the previously announced forthcoming special season dedicated to the Trans Pennine Trail – the epic long distance trail spanning between Southport and Hornsea with 370 miles of walking. The seven editions of this season will be filmed and edited entirely in UHD – making it the first walking series in the world available in 4K.
The new Smartphone app – which could be descriped as a “Sat Nav for walking” - is designed to help more people outside by having a library of 200 specially curated walks from around the country available to use from launch, with 15 new walks added to the app’s library every month. In addition, every walk featured in the TV and radio series will be available in the app, with additional extra content on those walks as the user visits different points on the route – all triggered by GPS.
Speaking about the new projects, Walks Around Britain’s senior producer and presenter Andrew White said:
“In this 5th anniversary year of the TV series, we’re working on a range of exciting projects which will move the Walks Around Britain brand into new areas. The radio series is a natural progression from the TV series, and the free Smart TV app will allow more people to discover and access all our content, across TV, podcasts and radio. It’s a thrill to be moving to UHD production on the Trans Pennine Trail series and to have that available via our own outlets.
“The new Smartphone app will be a game changer for us, with 200 specially-curated walks available from the start and 15 new walks added every month on an affordable subscription. And the additional content available via the app when you walk on routes from the TV & radio series is an exciting way of telling extra stories."
The Walks Around Britain brand encompasses the website, podcast, various social media accounts - including Britain’s most followed dedicated short walks Twitter account with 39,800 followers – the subscription video on demand site and the popular television series – which has been shown on a channel in the UK everyday since the 1st January 2017.