Sick of waiting for true internet TV? X-factor drives traffic to the mobile web

As we all know, there is no better way to shut your mind down completely after a long day than to sit in front of the TV. It’s a completely passive activity. But the ultimate TV dream seems to be in transforming it to an active pastime, where the user can pull in information they want along with what the TV is pushing on them. Making TV as interactive as the internet makes watching TV all that more addictive and appealing. Digital TV is one way of accomplishing this, but proper infrastructure for that isn’t in place yet. Touchscreen tablets like the CrunchP.. uh, JooJoo are another, and that area has its own problems. But as stats from Novarra are showing, while we’re waiting for those technologies to mature, mobile internet is filling the gap very nicely.

Who is Novarra?

Referring to itself as the Internet Mobility company, Novarra is completely dedicated to getting companies involved with the mobile web. It provides products to transfer services from every quarter from on-line to mobile. Operators, handset makers, brands and developers can all make use of Novarra products. Importantly, whenever Novarra enables a mobile version of an on-line service, it collects data and metrics from that service from then on. So Novarra can gather quite a lot of useful metrics for mobile web usage.

What is the report?

The main findings are as follows

• Novarra reports that mobile websites related to X-Factor saw their hits grow by over 15,000% between September and December, peaking at the final.
• One of the lowest levels of weekend page views was recorded on Sunday 18th October, the day of judge Cheryl Cole’s performance on the show. Views were down 124% from the previous  week
• Excluding the final, page views reached their peak on Sunday 25th October, up 74% from the previous week. On this day, early favourite Danyl Johnson was in the bottom two and had to ‘sing for survival’
• Despite fans’ threats to boycott the show following contestant Lucie Jones’ exit on 8th November, page views increased by 83% the following week

Scott Cotter, Senior Director Marketing Novarra, comments: “These findings illustrate how TV can be a powerful driver of mobile web traffic and that consumers are using their mobile devices to supplement their TV viewing habits. Furthermore, such volumes of traffic make a strong case for targeted mobile advertising moving forward.”

What we think?

Hugely impressive, yes, but Novarra didn’t reveal what the original figure was and what it grew to. 15,000% percent could represent, for example, and increase from 1 person to 150 people. Or from 100 people to 15,000 people… but I reckon that if those were the actual figures, Novarra wouldn’t have obfuscated them with mere percentages.

Either way, while the initial mobile web boostage was impressive, it didn’t slack off much during the run. The final saw 55% more mobile traffic than the previous weeks show had – and the live shows performed particularly well. It’s great to see those figures coming out now at the end of the year – for those attempting to convince TV brands and advertisers to increase their mobile ad spend, this kind of metric is invaluable ammunition.