The BBC iPlayer is doing pretty damn well if its new ream of stats are to be believed. It’s currently servicing around 190 million monthly requests, while the iPlayer iPad app has been heralded as the top free iPad app of all time in the UK. And that’s causing a shift. Are we finally coming to the end of our time spent huddled round a laptop?
The Beeb has poked the iPlayer into as many tech crevices as it possibly can. You can access its full gamut of TV and radio offerings from tablets, phones, IPTVs, laptops, desktops and all three of the major game consoles, and all of those things combined are forcing out the old ways of viewing online content.
We’ve beens scouring the BBC iPlayer’s latest iStats release, and have come across a pretty interesting tidbit: “Requests from computers now make up less than 60% of total requests.”
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That’s based on compiling all requests (TV and radio) from computers vs. Virgin, IPTV, consoles, tablets and mobiles, and represents a big change from the same time last year, where just 38 percent of views came from sources other than the ol’ computer.
Virgin Media’s cable service is currently serving up a huge amount of the current iPlayer views, sucking down 16 percent all by itself, even though that percentage has shrunk to allow more of a share to mobiles and tablets. Those two combined make up 17 percent.
All told, it’s a telling shift in the way we access online video content. How long before that computer viewing – which still represents a large chunk – shrinks away completely? Or will it always be a huge part of the iPlayer’s business? Answers on a postcard.
