Video Fuels Gains for PBS Online

By Julieanne Smolinski

PBS.org chalked up a few major victories over the digital outlets of the leading commercial broadcast networks in Web traffic, according to a new study by Hitwise.

For the 2007-08 television season, PBS.org garnered 18.87% of total Web traffic to the six major broadcast net Web sites (PBS.org, ABC.com, NBC.com, CBS.com, the aggregated Fox Web sites, and CWTV.com) and beat the others in total U.S. visits for the period of May 31 through June 21.

“Much of this growth has been driven by enhancements to PBS.org’s video offerings and by our focus on search engine optimization,” said Jason Seiken, senior VP of PBS Interactive, in a statement Thursday. “We’ve added many hundreds of hours of full-length video to the site and will be accelerating that effort this fall with the launch of additional series and a huge new video offering for kids.”

The numbers represent a 25% increase in traffic over the 2006-07 season. PBS said it expects to see another “big bump” this winter, when it will redesign its site and further extend online video offerings.