BBC: iPlayer’s future is mobile
February 14, 2011
Over 162 million requests were made for iPlayer programmes last month, a 12 per cent increase on December and a 35 per cent jump on January 2010. Just over 100 million of these requests were made online – but for Daniel Danker, head of on-demand, the future is mobile. “The ratio of growth we’re seeing [of mobile viewing] is incredible,” he said.
Before last week’s release of iPad and Android apps – 54,511 of the iPad apps were downloaded in the first 24 hours – mobile viewing accounted for 5 per cent of all iPlayer streaming, up from 1 per cent in January 2010.
“I’m not a betting man, but if I was then I’d bet that this will continue to grow. It’s about to really climb. The share of how people are viewing TV (via the iPlayer) will look meaningfully different at the end of this year,” Danker said.
Over Christmas, growth in mobile use of the iPlayer outpaced PC growth by more than two to one, and growth on tablets outpaced PCs by more than 20 to one. Streaming from Android phones boomed 228 per cent in the 24 hours after that app launch last week; iPad viewing jumped 111 per cent in the same period.
“This gives us a really clear signal where things are headed,” Danker said.