England game breaks BBC’s live online streaming record

England’s dramatic World Cup game against Slovenia saw a 31% boost in online traffic yesterday, according to early estimates.

UK internet traffic increased by almost a third during the afternoon game, as users logged on to watch the match via BBC’s live online stream, internet service provider KC said.

Figures show that the total number of ‘concurrent streams’ peaked at 800,000, although the total number of viewers is expected to be substantially higher, according to reports.

A BBC spokesperson said the figure was an early estimate but confirmed that the number was a record for the BBC.  The corporation is expected to release an accurate figure within the next 24 hours.

The surge in web traffic is thought to have been caused by the number of people trying to watch the game at work.

The BBC was prepared for the increase and “set aside as much capacity” on their servers as they could, to avoid being criticised for not being able to cope with the extra demand during World Cup games, as ITV has been.

The World Cup 2010 has broken several online records already.  Global web traffic on the first day of the competition reportedly exceeded the limit set when Obama won the US presidential election.

News sites saw traffic increase to more than 12 million visitors per minute on the first day of the World Cup, compared to around 8.5 million visitors per minute during the night of the US vote.