Summer Graduation 2019 live stream data
Between Monday 24 and Friday 28 June 2019, nine graduation ceremonies were streamed live on the University website. These streams were accessible via YouTube and were embedded on one page of the University website. We also set up an alternative web page embedding a stream feed with lower bandwidth primarily for users who have no access to YouTube, and for users encountering potential problems with the YouTube stream.
After each ceremony had ended, each YouTube video’s privacy was set to ‘unlisted’. The videos were only publicly accessible for an average of 90 minutes each.
Here’s a breakdown of the data.
Page views of the ‘watch graduation live’ web page per country
The YouTube videos were embedded on the University website on the ‘watch graduation live‘ web page.
In total, the ‘watch graduation live’ web page had 10,094 unique page views over the five-day period.
The countries with the top ten unique page views are as follows:
| Country | Unique page views |
| 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 6,839 |
| 🇺🇸 United States | 1,040 |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | 200 |
| 🇫🇷 France | 167 |
| 🇮🇹 Italy | 119 |
| 🇷🇺 Russia | 119 |
| 🇮🇳 India | 118 |
| 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates | 80 |
| 🇨🇳 China | 58 |
| 🇨🇦 Canada | 55 |
Page views within St Andrews
There were 2,010 unique page views from St Andrews of the ‘watch graduation live’ web page.
Therefore 4,829 page views were from viewers from the rest of the UK and 5,265 page views were from international viewers.
| Location | Unique page views |
| In St Andrews | 2,010 |
| Rest of the UK | 4,829 |
| International | 5,265 |
YouTube views per graduation ceremony
View counts of the nine graduation ceremonies were somewhat evenly distributed. In total, the YouTube videos had 7,344 views.
| Country | Views |
| Monday PM | 909 |
| Tuesday AM | 1,017 |
| Tuesday PM | 527 |
| Wednesday AM | 863 |
| Wednesday PM | 829 |
| Thursday AM | 648 |
| Thursday PM | 730 |
| Friday AM | 747 |
| Friday PM | 715 |
| Total | 7,344 |
YouTube views per country
From the YouTube data, we can determine which parts of the world viewers were in when watching the live stream.
In total, the live stream hosted on YouTube was viewed in 96 countries.
The top ten countries the ceremonies were viewed in are as follows:
| Country | Total playbacks |
| 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 4,401 |
| 🇺🇸 United States | 657 |
| 🇮🇳 India | 243 |
| 🇷🇺 Russia | 150 |
| 🇮🇪 Ireland | 127 |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | 125 |
| 🇫🇷 France | 115 |
| 🇱🇹 Lithuania | 83 |
| 🇮🇹 Italy | 81 |
| 🇨🇦 Canada | 67 |
Devices used to view YouTube videos
Users were mainly viewing the YouTube live streams on computers and laptops, although there is a high percentage of users viewing the live stream on mobile phones.
Interestingly, there was also one view from a PlayStation console.
| Device type | Views |
| Computer | 3,958 |
| Mobile phone | 2,606 |
| Tablet | 574 |
| TV | 192 |
| Game console | 1 |
Browsers used to view the ‘watch graduation live’ web page
Safari was the most popular browser used to view the ‘watch graduation live’ web page.
| Browser | Unique page views |
| Safari | 4,420 |
| Chrome | 3,395 |
| Safari (in-app) | 476 |
| Edge | 474 |
| Firefox | 454 |
| Samsung Internet | 303 |
| Android Webview | 265 |
| Internet Explorer | 222 |
| Opera | 55 |
| Amazon Silk | 15 |
Page views for alternative ‘watch graduation live’ web page per country
An alternative page was used to allow users who had problems with the YouTube embedded stream to view the ceremonies through FlowPlayer.
In total, the alternative live stream web page had 1,381 unique page views over the five-day period.
The countries with the top ten page views of the alternative page are displayed in the below charts.
Users from China have restricted access to YouTube. There is a direct correlation between users based in China navigating from the ‘watch graduation live’ web page (58 page views), through to the alternative web page (36 page views). 22 users based in China either chose not to view the alternative stream, or were unsuccessful in locating the link. We could make this more prominent for future ceremonies.
| Country | Unique page views |
| 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 922 |
| 🇺🇸 United States | 151 |
| 🇨🇳 China | 36 |
| 🇮🇳 India | 31 |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | 30 |
| 🇮🇷 Iran | 22 |
| 🇷🇺 Russia | 13 |
| 🇭🇺 Hungary | 11 |
| 🇮🇹 Italy | 11 |
| 🇨🇦 Canada | 10 |
Conclusion
This is the first summer we offered two ways to view the live stream of the graduation ceremonies. It is clear that offering an alternative to YouTube meets a requirement in some countries, however, we could find ways to make the alternative page more apparent as there is somewhat of a significant drop-off. We will continue to offer this service for future graduation ceremonies.
The continued growth of mobile devices to view the web site and live streams means we need to continually test the web pages on a variety of devices and screen sizes to ensure they are optimised for our visitors.