Where are the Olympics? Plusnet posted an article about how their bandwidth went up during the Olympics as lots of people were watching it online, from work etc. So why isn't it in the top 10?

My two boys are soley responsible for that top slot. Ever since the iplayer thing was launched they have used up all of my "unlimited" bandwidth wathing the good doctor over and again.

Of course Dr Who would be top, I can't always catch it when it is on air and not having a tardis of my own I need to use iplayer to be able to watch it at a different time.

I wish that they would put all the old series up for viewing again.

The Olympics run for just two weeks and few people watched every single event. More people watched the opening and closing ceremonies than watched any of the actual sporting events.

Contrary to popular belief, sport is not followed by the majority of TV viewers. Even major football events rarely get more than half the audience as an episode of "Doctor Who".

"Where are the Olympics?"

Although the olympics were so heavily watched at the time, they weren't on for very long at all.

Presumably the much longer availability window of all these other shows has allowed them to roll slowly up to much higher numbers of viewings than the olympics (there's practically always some kind of Dr Who, Top Gear, Little Britain and Mock the Week on the iPlayer somewhere, all year round).

Intersting and possibly an indication of where broadcast media may be going?

There has been much talk made over the last ten or fifteen years about TV (or video) on demand. Up until now it has mainly been talk. Cable TV companies have been offering a limited version and we can see this with Apple's video on iTunes system too. What is more significant about the BBC iPlayer is that in this case the content provider is itself providing the service, and providing it for free.

Granted it is the advent of broadband internet that has made this technology possible, allowing video to be streamed at an acceptable rate for viewing. But what should not be overlooked is that the main requirements for such a thing to succeed you need ease of access and content that people want to access.

The BBC has the latter in spades! And it seems to have delivered on the former too. So much so in fact that Virgin cable TV offer iPlayer as part of their TV packages. The BBC has developed and is further developing the iPlayer system and is licensing it onto other UK broadcasters. Obviously the iPlayer model is succeeding where other approaches to video on demand have not.

So where does this take us?

I have long suggested to my students (and any one who would listen...) that we are seeing a convergance of technologies, internet and broadcast coming together to provide the way in which we access our entertainment. Ok, this is not very original as it has been mooted many times during the period that WWW has been with us, but we are seeing a significant move towards this with the iPlayer (and similar) technologies. Significant enough to raise questions about the funding methods for the BBC (for our non-UK readers the BBC is funded by a license fee payable on ownership of TV sets in the UK, a kind of tax system).

My personal view is that we are now seeing this convergance of media taking place. Whether it will replace the traditional ways for broadcasters? - not yet, too many people still get their service through the TV set and do not have the means to use the on-line services. But give it 20 years or so and I won't at all be suprised to find most people will be using an internet based system to recieve their entertainment rather than traditional broadcast media and will be enjoying the diversity that this will bring.

What?

That's the subject for another post, but I'll give you a clue - Utube...

> Plusnet posted an article about how their bandwidth went up during the Olympics as lots of

> people were watching it online, from work etc. So why isn't it in the top 10?

...because they were full of shit in their attempt to get out of providing the service they advertised? A few, Orlowski for example, were fooled by them pointing at router data showing "streaming' and the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth over the lettters "B, B and C" did the rest.

Of course, youtube and myriad other sites that host video were conviently ignored....