Giving customers accurate
regional TV Listings

The TV listings feature receives the most weekly active engagement and is key to subscriber retention. When I designed the MVP, we knew we'd have to iterate fast and develop other important features that support viewing preferences.

Problem

Users across the UK see the same TV listings

Customers were voicing frustration due to seeing incorrect listing information. BBC One and ITV can show different regional news, programmes, or schedule variations depending on where the viewer lives within the UK.

Research

Understanding user behaviour

The research surfaced that the majority of customers expect to set their region automatically through automatic location detection, and raise the need for manual method for border cases, when travelling, and privacy-conscious users — a user need I wasn't expecting.

48% of users have set their region before, supporting the need for this feature and a feature adoption goal to aim for.

Key insights

01

Of those who set their region, 54% did to get correct listings and 26% for travel use cases

01

Of those who set their region, 54% did to get correct listings and 26% for travel use cases

02

Automatic location region setting is the preferred method and is expected

02

Automatic location region setting is the preferred method and is expected

03

Users near regional borders frequently receive stronger signals from a neighbouring region and actively override their location — a real edge case requiring a manual fallback.

03

Users near regional borders frequently receive stronger signals from a neighbouring region and actively override their location — a real edge case requiring a manual fallback.

04

A meaningful subset of users prefer not to share location data, making a manual selection path essential — not optional.

04

A meaningful subset of users prefer not to share location data, making a manual selection path essential — not optional.

Solution

We designed 2 ways for users to set their region.

01

Geo-tracking, to make region-setting effortless and fast, we implemented geo-tracking using native Location Services functionality.

02

Manual region selection for border cases, privacy-conscious users, and travellers who want a fixed override

Modal prompt on users' first session to ensure full adoption of the feature.

Impact

We’ve seen strong feature adoption, and an expected preference towards location detection method

42%

of customers who have engaged with search have now set their region

85%

chose automatic location detection

29%

used manual selection

Note: the 85%/29% split sums above 100%, suggesting a subset of users tried both methods — consistent with border-region behaviour identified in research.

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