The limits of online video?

The BBC puts essentially all of its content online for free in the UK. It's on every device, at every time, on every network, for anything from a week to a month after transmission. In effect, this is the nirvana that US consumers talk about - no blackouts, no device restrictions, no channel conflict, no messing about, and no extra charge. 

And peak viewing in October was 540k, versus peak TV of 26m. 

So next time you talk about how you never watch TV anymore, remember that you're a very small minority, if only for now.

Looking at the long-term trend is interesting - there's a clear step-up in use every Christmas as new devices come into the base. But this isn't really very dramatic growth. We'll have to see what happens in January after the surge of tablet sales at Christmas - that may lead to a real change in the growth rate, but it's far from certain. 

That device-led surge means smartphones and tablets. These are now the second-largest viewing platform, taking share from PCs, while viewing on TVs is pretty much flat. (This is the chart for TV only, excluding Radio.) This may be because the navigation is better on a touch screen or because people prefer the hand-held form-factor (no word on Airplay or Chromecast use), or some combination of the two. 

The puzzle in all of this, of course, is whether and when the growth changes and this sort of on-demand viewing becomes a majority behaviour. That might be about the right device and interface (as it was for, say, digital music). But it may also just conflict with how most people want to watch TV. 

You can see the full PDF of data here.