Exclusive - mobile delivers half of record BBC Olympics traffic

Coverage on mobile saw the BBC deliver record-breaking coverage for the recently-concluded 2016 Olympic Games, with the broadcaster providing Telecoms.com with some exclusive insight.

The Beeb said 102.3 million unique global browser sessions made use of BBC Sport’s coverage of the games in Rio, across its full suite of broadcasting services – from the BBC Sport website and app, through to digital TV services, red button coverage and its brand new 360-degree video service for some events.

Of the 100 million browser sessions, 68.3 million came from within the UK, vastly outweighing the performance of BBC broadcasting during the 2012 Olympic Games in London, which reached 39 million.

The BBC went on to confirm that 29.3 million browsers tuned in to BBC Sport’s live online coverage, either via the website or the app. While no numbers were officially published on the role mobile played in the delivery of its coverage, the BBC exclusively told Telecoms.com the numbers behind mobile content during the Olympics.

The broadcaster confirmed that of the 29.3 million unique users of its service, just under half (14 million) tuned in using a mobile platform of some sort. Meanwhile, the dedicated BBC Sport app had a winning performance in Rio, with nearly 10% of all unique consumers of Olympics coverage doing so through the broadcaster’s mobile app – 2.9 million.

The BBC’s numbers were corroborated by application analysis firm App Annie, intelligence from which backed up how consumption of the BBC Sport app rose dramatically during the Games. In the weeks between the end of the 2016 European Football Championships in July and the start of the Rio Olympics on the 7th August, the app dropped in the UK sport app charts from the top of the charts to 10th place.

During the games the app jumped back up to 2nd place in the sport charts, only behind the official Olympic Games app; while, more generally, it was the 15^th most frequently downloaded application in the UK.

Over in the States the app also grew in appeal, rising from 250th in July to a peak of 41st the day before the games begun; rounding off a golden mobile display from GB’s official Olympics broadcaster.