RT Player App Hits Over Million Downloads

RT Player App Hits Over 2 Million Downloads 29 April 2016: RT today announced that its popular video-on-demand RT Player app has achieved over 2 million downloads across iOS and Android mobile and tablet devices.

78% of these downloads are within Ireland, while 22% are from international users. The app currently averages11,200 downloads each week with 262,000 unique browsers in the past 7 days. Today s announcement coincides with the 7th anniversary of RT Player, which first began in 2009 as a Desktop offering.

RT Player across all platforms (desktop, mobile, tablet, cable TV providers, Samsung Connected TVs and Xbox), is the number one broadcaster video on demand (VOD) service in Ireland, and currently serves an average of 4.4 million streams per month. This is up from an average of 3.35 million streams per month in 2015. The service had 489,000 unique browsers in the last 7 days.

RT Player's audience growth and number of streaming requests continues to be driven by big RT TV programmes and the expansion of RT Player's exclusive content offering. The service is shifting from being a pure catch-up service, to being an online TV destination for just aired TV as well as short-form online exclusives and extra content, for some of the nation's favourite shows such as Fair City, The Late Late Show, Bridget & Eamon, First Dates Ireland, Big Week on the Farm, Operation Transformation, and major sports events including, RBS 6 Nations. February saw the strongest volume of streams for online exclusive content with RT Player serving 268,000 streams, up 92% on February 2015.

The service is also delivering improved content curation, new immersive content hubs as well as exclusive series box-set previews in advance of their transmission on RT 's linear channels. The standard availability period for programmes has also increased from 21 days to 30 days.

An immersive 1916 Hub', Doc Hub' documentary collection and Food Bites Hub' are exciting new additions to the service. The Food Bites Hub' features a collection of bite size video recipes from Ireland's best known chefs including Neven Maguire, Rachel Allen, along with some rising stars, including; food blogger Indy Power from The Little Green Spoon' blog and Chef Adrian.

Aoife Byrne, Director of Content & Products, RT , said; RT Player is an increasingly important part of the way viewers enjoy RT 's content and this is being reflected in the increased number of streams we are serving each month. With 2 million app downloads, mobile viewing now represents a huge proportion of our streaming on RT Player and we are now creating and curating even more short-form content, particularly targeted around the needs and habits of this mobile audience. Whether audiences want to watch snackable 3-minute Food Bites on their phone, or, get immersed in our curated on demand documentary hub on their laptop, we want to ensure that our content offering is optimised for whatever screen audiences are watching on.

ENDS

Notes to Editor:

Further data on RT Player:

RT Player viewing peaks between 9pm and 11pm each day

Soaps are the most popular programmes on RT Player with Eastenders, Home and Away, Fair City and Neighbours among the top streamed programmes so far this year

The top 10 streamed programme to date this year (Jan March 2016) are:

Eastenders (1.4 million streams)

Home & Away (1.3 million streams)

Fair City (1.2 million streams)

Latest Irish News (458,343 streams)

Neighbours (390,473 streams)

Nine News (333,802 streams)

RBS 6 Nations (330,519 streams)

Rebellion (328,875 streams)

The Late Late Show (326,493 streams)

Operation Transformation (303,762 streams)

4.The top 10 streamed online exclusive content to date this year (Jan - March 2016) are:

The Late Late Show Extras (292,360 streams)

Fair City Extras (103,827 streams

The Ray D'Arcy Show Extras (88,821 streams)

RBS 6 Nations Extras (53,082 streams)

Operation Transformation Extras (48,173 streams)

Food Bites (28,798 streams)

Every County Has a Story (25,480 streams)

Home and Away Extras (25,186 streams)

Bridget & Eamon Extras (24,647 streams)

Rebellion Extras (24,549 streams)

LINK:	http://www.rte.ie/about/en/press-office/press-releases/2016/0429/78513...
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