AUTUMN NEWSLETTER 2008

Welcome to New Members
DigiTV extends a warm welcome to Rooftop Housing Group, Milton Keynes Council and North Tyneside, who will shortly be providing services on Looking Local through their bureau sites.
 

Usage high and rising...
Visits to DigiTV sites have soared over the past couple of months, partly due to the popularity of services like Job Centre Plus and partly due to promotion and the higher visibility it has created among potential users. Average total hits topped 1.2 million a month for July and August, double the number of hits recorded in June, and the most popular microsites are now getting between 20,000 and 30,000 hits a month. Top microsites for usage during July and August include Kirklees, Leeds, Birmingham, Stoke, Dudley and Norwich.

Looking Local banner ads on Virgin interactive throughout the summer had a dramatic impact on these figures, and with the ads set to continue, DIgiTV is confident that increased awareness of Looking Local will be sustained and will keep usage high longer term.
 

Publicity is the key...
Anyone wanting to boost usage on their own microsite can see the impact high visibility and promotion can have. It is well worth creating a buzz around your own TV and mobile based services and there are several ways to do it. You can buy and promote individual Sky keys for your service to get customers directly to your site (contact your DigiTV account manager for details) or create and publicise quick and catchy mobile links to make it easier for people to find you on their mobile too (look at www.medway.gov.uk/mobile for an example).
Or it could also simply be a matter of generating press coverage for new services in the local papers - anyone wanting tips on doing that should look at the marketing pack on the wiki or contact our new PR and communications manager Caris Stoller on caris.stoller@digitv.gov.uk.
 

Jobcentre Plus tops the polls...
The popularity of national plugins has also contributed to healthy usage figures. Jobcentre Plus, the most popular, received 750,000 hits during July from jobseekers using Looking Local via Sky, Virgin and mobile channels.
The plugin has created many very satisfied customers. 44 year old Karen is a prime example: her successful search contributed to the 6,500 hits during July for Jobcentre Plus in Cardiff despite that only being a one pager site.
Karen, who couldn't get to the Job Centre in Cardiff easily because of the lack of a good bus service, found a flexible job allowing her to also look after her mother within two days of finding the site. Her verdict: "It was so easy to navigate that I can't see why I would ever need to use a computer to do something like this. I would recommend it to anyone"
 

Local Choice Based Lettings proves just as popular
It's not just national plugins that are transforming people's lives. Housing Associations across the country have been adopting Choice Based Letting to reach government targets for choice of housing for all and are now extending that service to DigiTV - with encouraging results.
Norwich Homes achieved between 20,000 and 30,000 hits a month over the summer for its CBL service on Looking Local through Abritas, the first CBL provider to develop a DigiTV plugin.
They are delighted with the satisfied house seekers they have seen as a result. In mid August a young family with severe financial difficulties faced with homelessness moved into a two bedroom bungalow in South Norfolk they found through CBL on DigiTV. The same month, an older couple with health problems making stairs difficult found a small bungalow through the system, leaving a much bigger house free for another family who needed it more. And a young single man who had been living with his parents for over a year because of his relatively low need band successfully used CBL on Looking Local to qualify for a new build development earmarked for local residents. These are just three recent success stories that have convinced Norwich of the huge benefit the system offers them and their customers.
Now two more CBL providers have joined Abritas in developing DigiTV plugins - Home Connections and IBS Open Systems - creating opportunities for more of you looking to increase the accessibility of your service. Authorities or housing associations using any of these CBL providers can now ask them for a DigiTV plugin to extend the service to Looking Local.  
 

From housing to health ....
Health is just as big an issue, and DigiTV's services helping local authorities deliver remote healthcare services already include GP Appointment booking and Repeat Prescriptions on Looking Local. Both of these have been available for over a year now and several more Local Authorities are expected to launch the services in the coming months. 
Telehealth is one of the hottest issues on the Health agenda, which is why DigiTV is keeping very close to developments in the area. Many of you have already expressed an interest so we are setting up a forum for those wishing to share their views or needs in this area. Anyone wanting to join in should email ian.wiebkin@digitv.gov.uk.
 

New developments continue to value...
Some of the most successful microsites are developing innovative new services all the time to add value to their customers. We thought we would share a couple of these with you in case something like them would benefit your own users.
Islington continue to push the boundaries with new services for their users. With their groundbreaking payments service already up and running, they have now also gone live with their Anti Social Behaviour Reporting plugin.  You can see it here http://www.digitv.gov.uk/digitv/cds/islingtonbc/Netgem/screen.html?id=62052. 
 
The plugin links back to their Onyx CRM in the same way their Environmental issues plugin does making it a fully automated service. 
And Durham is the first Local Authority to sign up for StartHere. (screen grab - Paul?) StartHere is a new plugin which signposts users to national and local support around health, housing, education and social issues. It provides summaries of services as well as contact details for both national and local support organisations. Anyone interested in finding out more should go to www.StartHere.org
 
Digital TV Trends
Finally, anyone needing more evidence that now is the time to ramp up their services on Looking Local should review these latest Ofcom figures up to the end of March this year:

> Proportion of households whose main television set is digital rose to 87.2%.
> Sky UK subscribers at 8.3 million households, an increase of 332,000 over twelve months
> Sky subscribers taking the Multiroom service reached nearly 1.6 million
> Virgin Media cable subscribers number over 3.5 million, up by 36,800 in the first quarter of this year.