iPlayer Outperforming ITV.com

ITV’s online TV service has failed to increase its visitor numbers since November, while the BBC’s iPlayer has been recording strong growth.

ITV’s simulcast and catch-up TV service had a peak of around two million views of full length TV shows and clips in January, down by 200,000 views from its peak in November.

Full length TV shows accounted for only around 40% of the total number of video views in January.

ITV, which launched its video service last August, is aiming to reach £150 million in annual revenues from the online service by 2010.

This is in contrast to recent figures released by the BBC, which show that more than 2.2 million people watched a programme on the iPlayer during January, with approximately 11 million TV programmes streamed or downloaded on-demand (see Over 17m Shows Downloaded On iPlayer This Year).

However, the Guardian quotes figures from research firm comScore which show that in December ITV’s entire website network recorded 8.1 million video streams, although this was down from 9.8 million in November when viewers were hooked on shows such as I’m a Celebrity… and The X Factor.

The comScore figures include video streams from ITV websites including xfactor.tv, itvlocal.com and citv.co.uk, as well as ITV’s media player.

A report from analyst Screen Digest published earlier this month forecast that the iPlayer would be the driving force behind web TV growth this year (see BBC iPlayer To Aid Web TV Growth).

However, it added that the iPlayer’s dominance is building a precedent for free services that is making it harder for revenue-generating commercial strategies for online video to establish themselves.

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com

BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk