Jonah binge lifts iview

ABC’s binge-fest of Jonah from Tonga on iview attracted 551,000 plays over the weekend.

During the 48 hours it was the most played program on iview , comprising 30% of the plays on the catch-up platform. The video plays lifted 50% over the two days compared to the preceding weekend.

A video “play” of course, does not equal a person, because some viewers may have watched 6 x episodes and others may have stopped and started their views. This is the same principle in catch-up reportage, whether on iview or commercial sites (hence why they are not simply added to television ratings).

Chris Lilley is popular with iview users, holding the record of 216,000 plays in one day for  Jamie: Private School Girl.

ABC Director of Television, Richard Finlayson was happy with the platform experiment.

“ABC TV is committed to innovation in new platforms to connect audiences with our incredible Australian-made shows and I’m over the moon viewers have embraced our bold initiative to preview the show before its first traditional TV broadcast on Wednesday night,” he said.

“The Jonah preview binge re-writes the traditional TV rule book but is also creating huge anticipation for the broadcast premiere at 9pm this Wednesday night.”

“Big congratulations go to Chris Lilley and Laura Waters from Princess Pictures, who had the guts and foresight to support this initiative in advance of the series launch on ABC1 and BBC Three this week,” he said.

Chris Lilley, who’s en route back to Australia added: “I’m overwhelmed by the positive fan reaction to Jonah from Tonga. It seems that people really do like watching a whole series in one hit. I’m really excited for everyone to experience Episode 1 again on Wednesday night on ABC1. It’s the kind of show you can watch multiple times and find the things you didn’t notice the first time.”

The broadcast premieres at 9pm tomorrow night on ABC1.