Use of Live-Streaming – Update

We have now been live-streaming for over 2 years, most of which has been live on You-Tube.

This is a look back over the last year and a half to see how many people have seen the benefit of our live-streaming efforts.

The analysis has only looked at regular services (so no funerals or weddings). The metrics used are:

• The maximum concurrent views- this gives a good indication of how many are watching the live-stream while it is actually live
• Views – this is an indication of how many have watched the service online, both live and as a recording
• In-Church – The total number of attendees in church during the service

This first graph shows just the numbers for the Sundays (so missing out additional services such as ‘9 lessons and carols’, ‘All Souls’, ‘Corpus Christi’, and the Easter Dawn service’)

Up until Palm Sunday 2021 there was no congregation in church so the live stream was attracting around 100 viewers, and the total views were around 250-300. As people started returning to church the live views dropped to below 50 and have continued down to just over 20 for the last few months. Similarly the total views have gone down to between 50 and 100. The spike on the feast of St Stephens reflects the effect of the Diocese recommending everyone to view the St Paul’s service for the Sunday after Christmas when the Diocese did not have their own broadcast service. There was an obvious spike in church numbers on Easter day, and the usual dip on low Sunday, but otherwise church attendance and online views have remained fairly consistent this year, although over the last couple of months we have seen an upward trend in church attendance.

Although the numbers have understandably dropped as the majority of our congregation are now in Church, it can be seen that there is still a significant number still joining in live from home (Views-Live on the graph) and still a relatively high number viewing the recording afterwards (views-Sunday on the graph). Some of these are people who either live some distance away (we have people joining from Dorset, The Lake District, and even Germany!), or some just watch from home occasionally for convenience, but most are people who are still not ready or not comfortable to be mixing with a large number of people on a regular basis just yet.

The second graph shows all of the regular services with the obvious spikes for Easter Day, Advent Carols, 9 Lessons and Carols, and Midnight Mass. For some reason we also saw a spike for Trinity Sunday last year (can anyone suggest why that should be?)