PBS Sees Huge Success With Online Video & Mobile Video Distribution

It's always nice to see when Public Broadcasting succeeds at something. The something in question this time round is embracing online video distribution and then pushing out a massive quantity of it. 145 million videos in June is pretty impressive considering it's the fruit of new changes and offerings over at PBS.org including a site redesign and the addition of RAMP's MediaCloud for its video searching.

SEE ALSO: PBS Picks RAMP for Expanded Video and Content Navigation

PBS Pushes 145 Million Videos In June

Sure, it's not billions of videos, but that 145M was enough to get them into 15th place for online video according to comScore. At the rate they're going, we might be talking about them soon in the monthly Video Metrix write ups we do here at ReelSEO.

"Videos on PBS.org have a young and engaged audience. Seventy-two percent of visitors watching videos are between the ages 18 to 49, and our viewers spend an average of 18 minutes per video, far above the industry average." --Jason Seiken, Senior Vice President, PBS Interactive and Product Development.

Eighteen minutes per video is indeed quite high. That means they pushed out about 2.61 billion minutes of video in June.

Nearly One-third of Views via iOS

About 31% of their June video views came from an iOS device through one of their numerous apps like:

• PBS for iPad (a 2011 Webby Award winner)
• PBS KIDS Video for iPad
• PBS Apps for iPhone and iPod touch

Part of the explanation there could be the exclusive content launches they did through the apps. This is a major facet of their online video project and they are working to continue its growth by bringing in more local channel content which could really help drive more video views to them.

Statistics on total number of unique viewers and unique viewers on the iOS platforms were not immediately available.

An upcoming exclusive is set to air November 2, 9, 16 and 23, 2011 on PBS. "The Fabric of the Cosmos" is a four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene. Taking viewers to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time and the universe, audiences will discover that just beneath the surface of everyday experience lies a world hardly recognizable – a startling world far stranger and more wondrous than expected.

The first episode, "What is Space?," will be available a week in advance of broadcast on PBS for iPad and the PBS apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. The entire series will be available for web and mobile viewing each day following the PBS broadcast schedule.

Well done PBS! Way to show that even in the face of spending cuts because politicians fail to see the value of the work, you manage to prevail and show them that people truly do care about the content you are producing. Hopefully, the cuts won't be too deep and this new medium that you've widely embraced will continue to provide us all with entertaining and educational content. I, for one, will be looking forward to some of the new content and DVR'd Zen Vendetta. Now I've just got to find time to watch it.

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