BBC's interactive Olympics nears 9 million mark

net1

Official figures released by the BBC showed record number of viewers accessed the 2004 Athens Olympics through the corporation's interactive TV service and via bbc.co.uk. 8.96 million digital satellite viewers pressed the red button to use the BBC's interactive Olympic services, the highest reaching service to date and more than double the previous peak for Wimbledon 2004, the BBC commented.

Andrew Thompson, BBC Sport's Head of New Media, Sports News and Development, said: "This was the first ever truly interactive Olympics; a model for multi-media working at the BBC in the future.

83 per cent of those who had pressed the red button used the service for more than three minutes; 61 per cent were still interacting 15 minutes into the service, and 51 per cent stayed over 25 minutes. The figures show that 58 per cent of the available digital satellite audience have pressed red to interact.

The BBC's broadband Olympics service – which included both live and highlights coverage – attracted an estimated 2.8 million requests for at-home broadband streaming.

bbc.co.uk/olympics attracted 5.7 million unique users during the games with bbc.co.uk/sport and bbc.co.uk/sportacademy also registering their highest ever weekly page impressions.

"The interactive services give our audiences exactly what they wanted across the web and interactive TV: extra choice about what events they watch, when and how they watched them," Thompson concluded