Fiona Ramsay, Media Week, 20 June 2008, 11:00am

ITV.com reports big user increase

LONDON - ITV.com boosted the number of unique users by 600,000 between April and May, reporting 12 million video views on its online sites in part thanks to hit show Britain's Got Talent.

ITV, which is aiming to hit a £150m online revenue target by 2010, said video views on ITV.com and ITV Local increased by 21% month on month for the last five months, with 12 million video views in May alone.

On 1 June, following the Britain's Got Talent final, 1.1 million video views were recorded across ITV.com, and more than 8,000 hours of video watched on the Britain's Got Talent site. There were six million video views in total during the series transmission period between 12 April and the end of May.

ITV said viewing of catch-up content is evenly spread across genres, with soap Coronation Street leading the list of all-time most viewed with five million views, followed by Dancing on Ice, Benidorm, Headcases and Secret Diary of a Call Girl. But Euro 2008 has been the top programme in June so far, with just more than half a million video views and averaging 51,000 views per day.

Video views for ITV.com and regional news and weather site ITV Local were up 76% to 9.9 million between January and April.

ITV.com now has more unique users than MySpace. ITV.com's unique users for May amounted to 6.8 million, up from 6.2 million in April, while MySpace now has under five million users. ITV Local has also hit the one-million milestone.

ITV has made its biggest online moves around video content. Last year, ITV.com received a complete overhaul, adding streaming, made-for-online content, catch-up and archive material, which helped boost ITV.com's revenues by 57%, to £11m in 2007.

Since launch in August 2007, ITV.com combined with ITV Local has received 69 million video views and there has been a 362% increase in usage for video across ITV's portfolio of sites.

ITV.com alone has seen a four-fold rise in video views since August which represents an average increase of 53% month on month.

ITV Local had four million video views in May. The four regions where video has taken off the most are Meridian - 16%, Central - 15%, Anglia - 11% and London - 11%. In total, ITV Local has increased on average by 18% month on month since the start of the year with the London region experiencing the most growth, 50%, between April and May.