Video Surge On ITV Re-Launched Sites

New figures released today show that average daily users to ITV.com has doubled since the site’s re-launch in August last year, while video views on the sites have grown by 21% month-on-month since January, with 12 million playbacks in May alone.

The recent Britain’s Got Talent hit programme attracted 6 million video views on ITV.com during the TV series, with more than 8,000 hours of video watched on the Britain’s Got Talent site.

ITV.com and ITV Local has received a total of 69 million video views and there has been a 362% increase in usage for video across ITV’s portfolio of sites.

This surge comes as part of the growing success of online video playback services, including BBC’s iPlayer, which has only just topped ITV with 75 million playback requests, according to a report released by the BBC in May (see iPlayer Receives More Than 75m Requests To View Since Launch).

On ITV.com, Euro 2008 is proving to be the most popular programme in June so far with over half a million video views since the start of the tournament (an average 51,000 views per day) – knocking Coronation Street off the top spot.

Jeff Henry, managing director of ITV Consumer, said: “We are extremely pleased and excited by the rapid growth in video consumption across both ITV.com and ITV local. The growth in consumer demand for video was anticipated and stimulated by the relaunch of our sites last year.”

The joint video-on-demand venture, Project Kangaroo, between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4, is set to launch this autumn (see Kangaroo Could Launch This Autumn).

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com