AfterDawn: News

BBC iPlayer traffic increases 14-fold in a month

Traffic to the BBC's iPlayer service in the UK increased 14 times overall within the space of a month. The impressive gains were made between week ending 08 December 2007 and the week ending 05 January, with the service ranking 80th in the UK in the latter week, peaking at 62nd on New Years Day. Surfers looking to catch up on their soap operas gave a boost to the service, with Eastenders driving a large amount of users to iPlayer.

Other popular program searches were Live at the Apollo, Three men in another boat and Holby City. Over half of the traffic going to the iPlayer website came from other BBC websites, as the corporation has been aggressively promoting its service online. While such services from TV broadcasters are always a step in the right direction, the iPlayer still pales in comparison to the video heavyweight YouTube.



For the week ending January 5th, YouTube accounted for 8.75% of all UK Internet visits to Entertainment websites, over 12 times the market share of iPlayer, with YouTube being the 4th most search term in the UK currently. The average visit time for iPlayer is currently just under nine minutes, compared with almost 20 minutes for YouTube.

Of course, YouTube has been around much longer and has far more video content to offer than BBC's iPlayer.

Source:
Pocket-Lint.co.uk

Written by: James Delahunty @ 12 Jan 2008 20:20

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• 3 comments

• nobrainer

  There are still many shows that you still need IE for and M$ DRM for not all are available via the new flash offering, and you still need the crappy Kontiki P2P app installed for these shows, that runs continually without ppl's knowledge that are not computer savey running up huge bills or are throttled to death as internet packages in the uk are all governed by a monthly usage allowance or fair use policy and the BBC's Kontiki p2p app was making ppl unwittingly exceed their isp allowance.
  
  
  BBC exec's straw-man defence of DRM
  Originally posted by hyperlink: When asked about the iPlayer's P2P system (which you can't switch off, meaning that once you download shows, they're available for other iPlayer users to download from you), Highfield says that the ISPs have sold "unlimited" broadband to their customers without expecting us to actually use the service without limits. They have a dishonest pitch for their technology, and Highfield essentially says, "Well, that's their problem."
  

  The BPI Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  
  The RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  
  The MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX.

  13.1.2008 06:31 #1

• plazma247

  haha thats so funny where does he get it from:
  
  "the rightsholders who say that DRM on the BBC's downloads will stop unauthorized distribution of their videos."
  
  Wrong the drm system they implimented could be cracked very easy using undrm.... it was cracked months before they rolled out with it, but never the less they carried on despite the fact.
  
  "Highfield says that the ISPs have sold "unlimited" broadband to their customers without expecting us to actually use the service without limits. They have a dishonest pitch for their technology, and Highfield essentially says, "Well, that's their problem."
  
  Nooooooo, this terminology was long established long before the bbci player has started uk broadband has always been sold in this way.... infact the dishonest people here is the iplayers p2p creators who instead of using their own servers to distribute the content they would use all the subscribers....
  
  And as for the BBC then showing clips to the USA and rest of the world but with adverts, where as we get no adverts in the uk... how many people in the USA will just used an english based proxy service.... i know people in the USA who watch iplayer that way and ive watched a number of things in the states using the same method....
  
  The PROBLEM is the DRM... they have even been told this by an MP.
  
  http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/12542.cfm

  19.1.2008 10:51 #2

• borhan9

  Well done BBC :)

  26.1.2008 06:05 #3