ITV's web audience is on the increase

ITV: ramping up the pressure on the iPlayer
ITV: ramping up the pressure on the iPlayer

The BBC may be winning the online war with around 21 million people a month visiting its iPlayer service, but recent figures show that ITV is slowly catching the channel up.

In May, 12 million people 'tuned' into ITV.com, with the beginning of Euro 2008 and the finale of Britain's Got Talent getting a deluge of hits.

This is good news for ITV who, just last August, invested £20 million into the website. And the relaunch seems to have paid off, as during January and May this year the broadcaster has seen a 362 per cent increase in video usage, according to the Guardian.

Headcases is ahead

The programme that is proving most popular on the site is Headcases, the CG comedy show that see celebrities mocked in a Spitting Image like way. This is currently number one of the most-watched things on the site.

So far, June has seen the site get an average of 51,000 hits a day. This may well be due to the Euro 2008 finals.

Speaking about the results, Jeff Henry, managing director of ITV Consumer, said: "Our turnaround plan sets out our ambition to significantly grow our online assets and these numbers reaffirm our belief in the potential of this area.

"We are extremely pleased and excited by the rapid growth in video consumption across both ITV.com and ITV local."

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.