UK Internet Users Flock to Big Brother 25/08/00 Big Brother, the cult TV show where 10 people are filmed day and night for nine weeks, has attracted phenomenal Web ratings, according to the latest findings from NetValue. The 24 hour live webcast, which has already proved a hit in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, has become a national obsession in the UK. Through the use of live Web transmission, Big Brother is the first TV show in the UK to make serious use of a new viewing experience. In July, 700,000 people (6.9% of all home Internet users) visited the website at least once, and resulted in Big Brother entering the top 50 most visited websites in the UK. The average time spent on the site in July was 16.1 minutes per user. Demon.net, which provides video-streaming for the Big Brother site, became the leading audio/video-streaming site in the UK. The video-streaming reach of the site went from 1.8% in June to 2.9% in July, suggesting that many of these 295,000 users accessed the site to watch live transmission of the show, for an average of 25.3 minutes per user in the month. The Channel Four website, which has a direct link to the Big Brother site, has also enjoyed a huge surge in visitor numbers: reach of the website leapt from 1.8% in June to 7.1% in July. Who is visiting Big Brother? NetValue found that 60% of all visitors to the site are aged 34 and under, with the 15-24 age group accounting for almost a third of visitors. 2 in 3 visitors to the Big Brother site are male, with students making up 28% of visitors, and professionals accounting for 18%. According to the NetValue findings, gambling websites are also increasing in popularity with numbers of visitors growing by over 370,000 in the month, from 1.8 million visitors in June to 2.2 million in July. The launch of bananalotto.co.uk, the online lottery website with a daily jackpot of £1m, has contributed to this massive increase, with 7.1% of all Internet users visiting the site at least once in the month. The attraction of the site is that, unlike the National Lottery, players do not have to pay to enter. Banana lotto.co.uk was the 36th most visited site in the UK in July.