OPEN

Heather Hopkins of Hitwise, newly ensconced in Tokyo, still has her eagle analyst eyes trained on UK web traffic data. Catching up on my feeds – well a few of them at least – from the last week, I see that she has made a prediction that YouTube will soon outperform the BBC in terms of traffic within the next few weeks.

Last week, BBC.co.uk ranked #14 among All Categories of websites with 0.82% of all UK Internet visits compared to YouTube’s #25 ranking with 0.81% of UK Internet visits. The gap between the two websites is closing rapidly. Last week, BBC had a 1.6% lead on YouTube in share of UK visits, down from 37% three months ago and 131% six months ago.

BBC.co.uk has been the #1 ranked Entertainment website each week for the past two years and YouTube has held the #2 position since October 2006.

Share of UK visits to BBC.co.uk continue to grow, up 13% year on year in May, however it is far outpaced by gains from YouTube. YouTube’s share of UK visits were up nearly 7-fold (669%) year on year in May and up 140% in the past six-months.

Answering a question from Lloyd Shepherd in the comments section of her post, Heather says that the data only reflects the visits to YouTube and not views of embedded videos in people’s blog posts, a fact which makes the trend all the more compelling for me. The distributed element of YouTube’s use would be very interesting to know about as well – one I suspect it would be significant.

Off the cuff analysis:

• This is incredible. The BBC has been such a staple of the UK (and wider world’s) web diet for so long I have just presumed its continued preeminence and, frankly, the thought hadn’t occurred to me that one day we would see this happen.
• Shows a continuing impressive growth in YouTube’s user base. Doesn’t it just.
• Illustrates the breadth of content and uses of YouTube. It’s not just about funny videos or rip-off clips: the content and the ways the platform’s being used are many and myriad. It’s more like a web utility (think search or email) than a content destination.
• May add – just a jot – of pressure to the BBC’s management. Check out Bobbie Johnson’s incisive analysis in the Guardian from a few weeks’ back if you’re unsure why BBC 2.0 may be floundering a little.