Broadband 'driving web TV views'

14th March 2008

Broadband penetration in the UK is accelerating the growth of online TV viewing, according to one industry representative.

Barak Bar-Cohen, president and chief operations officer with Narrowstep, notes that as more people in Britain acquire broadband connections, internet broadcasts of television programmes are set to become more common.

Key to this development is the provision of high-quality content, asserts Mr Bar-Cohen, as web TV consumers are only willing to invest their time and bandwidth in the best programmes.

"We're also seeing that the quality of the content and the quality of the stream is a big driver in not only viewing times but repeat usage and adoption in general. We're very focused on quality," he says.

Some 18 per cent of respondents to the Entertainment Media Research's 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey said they watched less scheduled TV content because of the availability of online video streaming.

However, fewer than one in five people were revealed in the report to have watched programmes over the web.