BBC Iplayer hits 81 per cent growth rate

THE BBC HAS SEEN an 81 per cent year on year growth in Iplayer use as more viewers have given up on watching the traditional telly.

The BBC released a breakdown of Iplayer usage statistics today that collated a whole array of metrics from February 2009 to February 2010 to show the year on year changes in the habits of viewers. The information is an absolute gold-mine and it's the kind of data that many advertisers would love to get their mitts on, if only they could use it to advertise on the Beeb.

The statistics show that the Iplayer service had the highest ever number of requested TV programmes in February 2010 alone. 116.4 million of us used the service last month with 68.7 million requesting specific TV programmes.

The BBC reckoned that's about 1.4 million per day tuning in for their online TV fix and most of them tuning in for their daily dose of soap depressant, Eastenders. The second most popular programme was, forgive us all, The Chris Moyles Show. Daily requests went up to 3.5 million and the Beeb said that the Nintendo Wii Iplayer service reached over 1 million installs.

The days of watching Big Daddy wrestling at your Nan's house every Saturday at lunchtime are numbered. For a start, Big Daddy is dead and amateur wrestling by overweight English chappies is no longer shown on terrestrial TV because it's not the '70s anymore. But our point is that the BBC's statistics show that we no longer watch TV from fixed locations at fixed times.

The Iplayer has successfully ruled as the biggest and best service of choice as viewers migrate to online content services. You know you are onto a good thing when even Apple finally relents and offers an app for your service. µ