Subscriber numbers to the BBC iPlayer in Australia are now larger than those of the second and third countries combined.
In a presentation to the 10th annual Australian Broadcasting Summit Matthew Littleford, general manager for BBC Worldwide’s global BBC iPlayer, said the country was providing unique consumer insight.
The country accounts for 20% of global revenue, followed by Germany and the Netherlands. Twenty three per cent of Global BBC iPlayer’s subscribers and 19% of title downloads are in Australia. Littleford revealed that there had been a huge number of downloads of the free app and, of all the major territories; conversions to the paid service are higher in Australia than anywhere else, across all devices.
Consumption across devices is in line with other territories. Thirteen per cent of Australian users access the app on multiple devices and 7% of subscribers don’t have an iPad, implying that they are watching content solely on iPhone and iPod touch. Also in line with other markets, the average Australian subscriber watches 4.2 shows a week.
“This graphically demonstrates the fact that VOD gives us a unique consumer insight. It clearly shows how a VOD service can quickly optimize itself to different territories by simply listening to its viewers,” said Littleford. “Editorial decisions are already being made on a whole range of completely measurable new insight gained directly from existing viewer interaction and localised for each territory.”
However there are significant differences. Littleford revealed that in Australia there was more demand for content to be viewed out of home. Australia significantly over-indexed in the use of the download-to-view offline functionality, implying that Australians are accessing content to view whilst travelling or commuting. Over a fifth of content is being accessed in this way (21%), compared to around 16% in other territories.
Launched in Australia in September 2011, though still regarded as a pilot service, the Global iPlayer is available on iPad, iPod and iPhone in 16 markets in Western Europe, Canada and Australia.
