Since the BBC iPlayer relaunched last Christmas, video on demand and streaming video usage has increased substantially in the UK, and there seemed to be no sign of that growth stopping.
However, it now appears from the latest figures released by the PlusNet ISP that the streaming growth is reaching a plateau or at least going through a period of non-activity.
The year started with a boom, and February saw 25% more streaming traffic per day than there was in January, a fact which caused many (though not PlusNet) ISPs to criticise the BBC for increasing their bandwidth costs.
A Temporary Blip Or New Trend?
However, the increase between February and March slowed down to just 6.61% then the growth for April was a disappointing 3.19%. Dave Tomlinson, writing on the company’s blog, said:
“So it looks like we’re getting towards the plateau in terms of the current trends of streaming.”
“Of course this doesn’t mean it will stay like this, our expectations are that this is just a natural levelling off which will ultimately take a further upward curve either as applications like iPlayer and ITV’s recently launched catch-up service become even more mass market.
Or as more applications become available (plenty more content on the horizon) or as the quality (and thus bit-rate and actual usage) increases.”
New Services Launching
The Kangaroo service, a joint venture between the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 is expected to launch in the autumn, and that could indeed reinvigorate the demand and growth in streaming figures.
There are also other video streaming service either launching, or being prepared for launch, such as Sky TV’s Picnic Pay TV service.
Like PlusNet, I think, and hope this slowdown in growth is just a temporary blip rather than a trend.
