Digital games smash BBC records

The BBC had 106 million requests for Olympic video content across all online platforms, more than double the amount of requests for any other event.

The UK public broadcaster offered up to 24 HD feeds via PCs, mobiles, tablets and connected TVs during the Olympics and has claimed the games were the first to be truly digital. The 106 million video requests were made up of 62 million live streams, eight million on-demand streams and 35 million video clips. The total eclipsed the previous highs of 32 million for the Beijing games in 2008 and 38 million for the 2010 World Cup.

On the busiest day, the BBC delivered 2.8 petabytes of video, with the peak traffic moment occurring when Bradley Wiggins won Gold. The most popular live-streamed event was the tennis singles finals, with 820,000 requests.
The BBC said there were 9.2 million UK mobile browsers using BBC coverage and 12 million requests from mobiles for video throughout the games.

Phil Fearnley, general manager, news and knowledge, BBC Future Media, said: “Our aspiration was that just as the Coronation did for TV in 1953, the Olympics would do for digital in 2012. The demand and astonishing feedback we’ve seen from audiences accessing our Olympics content online, whenever they want, on the devices they choose, has exceeded our expectations and helped fulfil this aspiration. We promised audiences would never miss a moment of the Games. We delivered on our promise and will build on this to leave a lasting digital legacy for audiences in years to come.”