Posted: 22nd Jan, 2009 By: MarkJ
UK ISP
PlusNet has reported a four-fold surge in online TV viewing after broadband Britons tuned in to watch the historic Barak Obama event on their computers. The "
Barak Bounce" was strongest on the BBC iPlayer service between 4pm and 6pm as he was sworn in to become the 44th US President:
Neil Armstrong, Plusnets products director, said: The internet played a big part in this election and its only natural that people turned to it for coverage of history in the making. The fact that the inauguration happened during working hours indicates that a lot of people without TVs accessed the transmission on the Web from their offices.
The BBC broadcast live footage on its website using its iPlayer technology. At one stage, the video feed crashed for 30 minutes because of the sheer volume of people trying to access online coverage. Plusnet also recorded a three-fold leap in streaming traffic during Obamas election victory in November.