This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

The success of the BBC iPlayer is proof that the corporation is right to bet its future on the internet, its director of future media and technology, Erik Huggers, said yesterday.

Huggers also announced that the online TV catch-up service has served 248m items of content since it launched officially on Christmas Day last year.

Speaking at Screen Digest's conference on the future of online media distribution, Huggers set out his priorities for the development of the BBC's digital services.

He said the iPlayer should be opened up internationally, that bbc.co.uk needs to introduce more social media and that the corporation is working to develop industry standards so that content can be developed more easily for a range of different devices.

"The internet is, by definition, a global medium, yet today we are artificially blocking international access to the iPlayer. That's a problem, in my mind, and a big challenge for the industry," Huggers added.

"I know that bbc.co.uk is the third biggest web property in the country, yet every time I go there I feel completely alone. Instinctively, I know there are other people on the site so the idea is connecting audiences with programming and with each other, embracing that big theme of social media."

Huggers, who was appointed to to head the BBC's digital activities in July, replacing Ashley Highfield, said that the iPlayer is in a constant software development process more like that of a technology firm, with new features and functionality added every week.

By the end of the year, the service will offer a download manager for all operating systems, and has already introduced "series stacking" so that users can save an entire series.

The priority is to make the iPlayer available on as many digital platforms as economically possible, said Huggers. The iPlayer service available through Virgin Media's cable service alone served 49m videos since June.

PC users still account for the vast majority of iPlayer viewers with 85% of the audience, with Nintendo Wii and Linux both accounting for 1%, according to Huggers.

He said the popularity of the iPhone and iPod Touch had taken the BBC future media and technology team by surprise. Apple Mac users now account for one in 10 iPlayer viewers, while iPhone and iPod Touch owners account for a further 3%.

"The situations we're seeing are interesting - mum and dad are watching linear TV in the living room but kids are watching in a different way ... on the iPhone, iPod Touch or laptop," Huggers added.

EastEnders, which pulls in an average of 18.9 million TV viewers each month on BBC1 and BBC3, attracts 457,000 viewers on the iPlayer.

CBBC digital channel programme MI High has a far higher proportion of viewership on the iPlayer: it has a TV audience of 145,000, while 30,000 watch on the iPlayer. Huggers insisted that the online audience did not cannibalise the TV audience.

He noted that the iPlayer is popular during office hours through the day but, as viewership peaks in the evening around 9pm, heavy usage typically continues for an hour longer than TV viewing. "That's a fabulous opportunity to extend or hold on to prime-time users for an extra hour," Huggers said.

The BBC's user data shows the iPlayer is used by a range of ages. Huggers said that 15- to 34-year-olds account for 37% of viewers and 35- to 54-year-olds account for 43%. A further 21% of users are aged 55 or over and Huggers credited the iPlayer's popularity to it being easy to use.

"Having seen all this and understanding more about the success of the service, the sort of users, when they watch it and what they watch, I think the BBC is absolutely betting on the internet protocol in a way where it's not just the distribution side of what the internet enables," he said.

"We are completely re-engineering the way in which we make fantastic programming."

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