BBC’s iPlayer Unique Visitors Jump 17% in February over January, Nielsen

BBC’s iPlayer Unique Visitors Jump 17% in February over January, Nielsen

LONDON — The BBC’s iPlayer, a destination site for BBC news and entertainment programming, is enjoying rapid growth in the U.K. where unique monthly visitors have jumped 17 percent last month, up from 198,000 in January to 232,000 in February, according the most most recent data compiled by Nielsen. Time spent on the player has increased to 10:24 per visit, up from 8:51 in January, an increase of 18 percent. Nielsen does not compile video views and the BBC has not released its February numbers. For January, the BBC served 120 million videos. Last Monday, I spoke with Mary Hockaday, Head of the BBC Newsroom. She speaks about the simplicity of the the iPlayer and its success. The iPlayer is geo-blocked and cannot be seen outside of the U.K. Hockaday was a panelist at the Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable held at the Guardian. Much more of my interview with Mary about online video journalism to come.