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The success of the BBC’s iPlayer service has led media analyst firm, Screen Digest to revise its usage and data forecasts on the online TV market in the UK.

The emerging prominence of the free-to-view (FTV) model has been a major factor in the increasing use of web-TV services. The report shows that 800 million free-to-view online TV shows were streamed or downloaded by UK households in 2007. This figure is set to almost double in 2008 with 1.5 billion programmes expected to be viewed online.

The BBC website, including its iPlayer service accounted for 38 per cent of the total UK FTV market in 2007 according to Screen Digest’s analysis of comScore’s consumption data.

Screen Digest attributes the iPlayer’s success to two factors in particular: browser-based open access delivery and flash-based streaming.
In December 2007, the BBC made a decision to migrate the iPlayer from a proprietary application download environment to an open access web streaming model. It is viewed as no coincidence that in the two weeks following the launch, over 3.5 million programmes (250,000 daily) were downloaded or streamed.

The continued development of the iPlayer’s open web platform has lead Screen Digest to suggest that the growth is sustainable - at least for the first half of 2008. Platform syndication strategies such as enabling content to be used across third party websites and blogs will increase the web presence of the iPlayer.

The move to allow viewers to access iPlayer’s full seven day catch-up through Flash-based streaming has enabled non-Windows users to access the programming. This is seen as critical by Screen Digest and is in contrast to ITV.com and Channel Four’s 4oD service which are only available to those with a Windows PC.

However, despite the increase in the number of web-TV viewers, the predicted online TV revenues remain unchanged going from £19m in 2007 to £98m in 2012. The report suggests that there is still a lack of clear strategy from commercial broadcasters and the BBC’s free model will continue to dominate.

Arash Amel, Senior Analyst says "Screen Digest is monitoring the development of the market. Our long-term financial outlook of the UK online TV sector will now be dependant on the future development of convincing platform strategies by UK commercial broadcasters ITV, Channel Four and Five, as well as new entrants such as Bebo, MySpace, YouTube and Joost. It is expected that the success of the BBC’s iPlayer open web streaming model, and future ‘viral syndication’ strategies, will encourage UK commercial broadcasters to enter a long term reassessment of how they deliver programming to users."