RTE have followed in the footsteps of many international broadcasters by launching an on-demand player on their website. The new service allows Irish visitors to the RTE site to view content up to 21 days after it is initially broadcast.
RTE claim to have over 200 hours of footage available at launch and are expecting a significant rise in visitors to the site. The new functionality and visitor numbers will in turn be used to drive increased reveunes from advertising and corporate partners.
“This is a significant enhancement to the consumer experience offered on rte.ie and we expect a subsequent growth in usage and traffic, which will in turn offer commercial advertisers opportunities to reach audiences in new ways.” Executive Director of RTÉ Publishing, Múirne Laffan.
The BBC’s iPlayer saw significant success at launch with over 3.5 million programmes have being streamed or downloaded on demand via theclass player within a fortnight of its marketing launch on Christmas Day 2008. The BBC has recently moved to include HD programming to its service and plans to launch a player for mobile phones in the near future.
