YouTube to Surpass BBC in UK Visits

In the Entertainment category, YouTube seems set to surpass BBC.co.uk in share of UK visits within weeks, according to Hitwise’s Heather Hopkins, writes MarketingCharts. BBC.co.uk has apparently been the top-ranked Entertainment website in the UK for the past two years.

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YouTube to Surpass BBC in UK Visits

In the Entertainment category, YouTube seems set to surpass BBC.co.uk in share of UK visits within weeks, according to Hitwise’s Heather Hopkins, writes MarketingCharts. BBC.co.uk has apparently been the top-ranked Entertainment website in the UK for the past two years.

Among all categories of websites, BBC.co.uk ranked 14th with 0.82 percent of UK Internet visits last week, compared with YouTube’s 0.81 percent and No. 25 ranking – but that gap is quickly closing, according to Hitwise.

BBC had a mere 1.6 percent lead on YouTube in share of UK visits last week, down from 37 percent three months ago and 131 percent six months ago.

Although UK visits to BBC.co.uk are still growing – up 13 percent from May 2006 to May 2007 – YouTube’s share of traffic* increased 669 percent in the same period, according to Hopkins.

In the meantime, the Entertainment category itself overtook the Shopping and Classifieds category in shares of weekly UK Internet visits for the first time (in the past two years) in the week that ended May 26, Hitwise said (MarketingVOX).

*Hitwise excludes off-network traffic; that is, the traffic reported refers to direct visits to YouTube.com, rather than content served by YouTube, such as YouTube videos embedded on other sites.