Our recent BBC World News series ‘The Health Show’ has revealed some big changes in audience viewing habits.
During transmision, more than 80% of opinion formers watched the films on-line (Ipsos Mori) – this was a suprisingly big number, but the story doesn’t end there. This data relates to the period immediatley after BBC transmission when the films were available only on the BBC web site. Now the films can be watched on internet platforms that range from ABC News and big US social action web sites to small NGOs and more video sites than we can count. So the on-line audience has continued to grow fast in relation to the TV viewing figures.
The significance of the original TV audience is diminishing fast. What we can’t tell from our data is wheter this reflects a diminishing role for on-line global TV news as more people go on-line for their information. And, of course, global TV creates a splash that attracts attention, and that in turn drives internet traffic.