More than six million viewers of the Olympics have tuned into the BBC’s interactive coverage of the games since they opened Aug. 13.
In part, the success of interactive television for Olympics coverage can be attributed to the fact that so many events occur simultaneously during the competition. Interactive TV gives viewers an opportunity to select which event they wish to watch.
The interactive service is available to UK viewers who subscribe to digital television packages from one of four providers.
The BBC is making available two free channels of Olympics coverage and four additional interactive channels offering hundreds of hours of event coverage that are available to pay TV subscribers. Roughly 80 percent of viewers have used the interactive services for more than three minutes and 46 percent have for 25 minutes or longer, according to the BBC.
The BBC counts anyone who’s watched at least one minute of Olympics coverage among the interactive viewer total. So far, six million traditional viewers have watched BBC coverage from Athens as well.
