Online video is becoming a very mainstream, must-have part of daily life for millions of people. Especially in the U.K. Which means Web TV is becoming a driving force behind the take up of fast Broadband services.
Terrestrial Online Offerings
Here at Web TV Wire, we’ve recently been looking at how the online video sector in the U.K. has started to heat up. The BBC iPlayer is already here and doing very well, with ITV Player and 4oD backing it up to give British viewers a VOD catch-up TV service for the major terrestrial channels.
Just Like Buses…
Then there is the MSN Video Player, which although only older archived shows is another option for British viewers of Web TV. I reviewed Microsoft’s offering a few days ago, deciding that while the content was excellent, the video quality let it down. My view on that hasn’t changed since.
These offerings will soon be joined by Arqiva, which recently bought the infrastructure of Project Kangaroo and immediately promised to use it to launch a video-on-demand service in the next few months. And Hulu, which is planning to start its journey east from the United States by launching a service in the U.K.
A Changing Role
What these increasing options are doing is prompting more and more people to watch television via the Web. And for that you really need a Broadband Internet connection with speed and stability. Which is exactly what more and more people in the U.K. are choosing.
Ofcom published its annual Communications Market Report for 2009 last week. It shows how the role of the television is changing in our lives, and a big part of that change is down to the Internet and the way we access entertainment.
BBC iPlayer On The Up
For starters, 15 percent of people who have a reliable broadband connection now watch programs via the BBC iPlayer. Which equates to around 5.2 million people regularly accessing the catch-up service for shows such as Top Gear, Mock The Week, and Live At The Apollo.
That 5 million is almost double the amount of people who were using the service this time last year. A number of factors could be at play here. Online video is more mainstream and so more people will have given it a try and been blown away by the experience. The iPlayer redesign will also have helped, with streaming and download options both being improved upon.
Driving Broadband Take Up
On a bigger level, online video is also driving the take up of Broadband Internet services in the U.K. 68 percent of the nation has now moved on from the modem and narrow band and is surfing at high speed. That’s a 17 percent increase in the space of a year.
That isn’t a coincidence. More people are realizing that to truly get the best of the Internet, including having access to VOD TV catch-up services such as the iPlayer, something a little faster than a 52k connection speed is required.
[Via Broadband Finder]
