Online Video On Demand

Online VoD

• Over the past few years, the launch of online VoD players have been introduced and launched by several broadcasters. They are a convenient way to watch programmes and are often referred to as ‘catch up TV’ services.

• We used a variety of these players to research documentaries of a similar style to our own.

BBC iPlayer

The most popular and well known online player is the BBC iPlayer. It contains all BBC shows from the past 7 days allowing users to ‘catch up’ with their favourite shows.

For ease of use, the iPlayer is split across 3 sections including ‘Featured’, ‘Most Popular’ and ‘Recommended’. There is also a genre search function which is an ease of use tool. When researching our documentary we found a little amount of content which was the same format as our documentary we planned to create. The lone programme we found was a Panorama episode entitled ‘Addicted to Gaming’ which was a complete coincidence. We decided that the BBC was the wrong broadcaster as it had the least content which related to our documentary.

4oDAnother broadcaster which offers catch up content is Channel 4. There online service differs from the BBC as it offers archived content from Channel 4 as well as recent shows.

The home page of 4oD is a lot less user friendly as the BBC iPlayer as it bombards the user with content as soon as they enter the home page, although there are categories in a highlighted box which is useful for the user.

When researching for our documentary, 4oD was the most useful of players as it had the most documentaries which had the same format as the one we was creating.

ITV PlayerThe last VoD service we looked at was ITV’s offering – ITV Player. They have content which is up to 30 days old as well as recent showing across the ITV platforms.

We found this the most user friendly out of all the broadcasters as the layout is the most simple, due to the ‘What’s on’ content box which is easy for users to search for their shows they wish to view. There is also a search box for all shows.

Although we found this the most user friendly, we found that it lacked content which related to our documentaries. We found no existing documentaries which was the same format as our one as the ITV ones were mainly fronted by celebrities and well known faces.

What our documentary would like on 4oD . . .