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The popularity of the iPlayer TV service has fallen for the first time, raising questions about the BBC’s ability to maintain its position as a pioneer of online video.
The iPlayer — which gives users access to the BBC’s radio and TV programmes — has been one of the broadcaster’s biggest success stories, and has become one of the UK’s biggest brands since its launch in 2007.
But the number of requests to watch TV shows fell 7 per cent in March, compared with the same month in 2014. The decline came despite hit shows such as Top Gear and The Voice, and contrasts with booming online video statistics at other media companies.
William Perrin, director of internet consultancy Talk About Local, said “by comparative standards the iPlayer is struggling”.
The new Conservative government has promised to “sort out the BBC”, which it accuses of biased coverage during the recent election campaign. It is thought unlikely to increase the licence fee, which generates about £3.7bn a year for the BBC, and which is currently frozen, requiring the BBC to undertake significant cost cuts.
The iPlayer’s falling growth casts questions on one of the broadcaster’s biggest cost-cutting measures — to close BBC Three as a broadcast channel and make it online-only. Critics of that proposal have said the iPlayer, and a new dedicated online presence, would not give BBC Three sufficient prominence.
Requests for TV programmes on iPlayer sharply dropped to about 230m in March. Overall the service grew about 2 per cent year-on-year in the first three months of 2015, the slowest growth on record.
The BBC said the iPlayer “continues to perform strongly”, with the number of TV programmes requested reaching highs in January and February. “Variations of factors influence viewing figures,” it said.
Mr Perrin said the iPlayer may have become “too conservative”, focused on putting TV shows online rather than embracing shorter video formats, as popularised by platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. “It’s possible that the iPlayer represented a generation of internet video that is now being overtaken,” he said.
This week the BBC confirmed the closure of its Global iPlayer — a Netflix-style subscription service that meant overseas viewers could enjoy much of its content. Instead the BBC’s commercial arm will focus on distributing its shows via other broadcasters.
Among the iPlayer’s admirers is the chief executive of Netflix, Reed Hastings, who said the service would eventually become the core of the public broadcaster. “The BBC will be the iPlayer. They will name it the BBC player,” he said.
That thinking has been echoed by the BBC’s new technology chief, Matthew Postgate, who has promised to make the BBC “internet-centric”.