Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK

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Freesat proves popular online

May 14, 2008

The launch of Freesat, the free satellite TV service provided by the BBC and ITV in the UK, proved popular with online consumers during its launch week. UK Internet traffic to www.freesat.co.uk, the service’s online homepage, increased by 627% between the weeks ending May 3rd and May 10th, while UK Internet searches for the term ‘freesat’ increased by 752% over the same period, making it the fastest moving search term in the UK last week.

UK internet searches for freesat and sky april may 2008 chart.png

There were 79% more searches for the term ‘freesat’ than the term ‘sky’ during the week ending May 10th. However, this is to be expected for a new product that has received a lot of media attention – over a fifth of Internet traffic to Freesat’s website came from news and media sites during its launch period. As the chart below illustrates, Sky’s homepage still received 250% more internet visits that www.freesat.co.uk.

UK internet traffic to sky and freestat websites february march april may 2008.png

However, the types of visitors that each site is attracting are quite different. Two thirds of visitors to www.sky.com are aged 45 or under, whereas for Freesat the comparable figure is 43%. Freesat appeals to an older audience: 43% of visitors to its website last week were aged 55 and over, compared with just 20% for Sky. Freesat also appeals more to people living in rural areas such as the South West, but is less popular than Sky in larger cities, particularly in London and the North West.

UK internet visits to freesat and sky segmented by age group.png

The interest in Freesat also helped boost traffic to electronics retailers and manufacturers last week. 35% of people visiting the Freesat website last week chose to visit a retailer afterwards, while a further 10% went to electronics manufacturers’ websites. Argos received the most traffic of any retailer from Freesat, accounting for 16% of all downstream visits from www.freesat.co.uk. The site that received the second largest amount of traffic from www.freesat.co.uk was Humax, the British electronics manufacturer that is producing one of the Freesat set top boxes. Freesat accounted for 44% of Humax’s traffic last week, helping increase visit to the site by 467%.