On that occasion – 4 June, when Senator John Le Fondré beat incumbent Chief Minister Ian Gorst for the top job – a total of 404 people tuned in live, with a further 183 doing so at a later date as archive viewers.
There have been 14,938 webcast views so far this year, comprising 8,596 live views and 6,342 archive views. The figures, which have been provided to the JEP by the States Greffe which has administered the system since its inception in 2016, come as preparations are being made for the live streaming of public meetings of States committees and panels in the autumn.
The figures include views for the Youth Assembly and the sessions of the Commonwealth Youth Parliament, all of which were webcast. The States Greffe also records the number of viewers – of which there have been 8,161 so far this year.
Of those, there have been 4,868 viewers for live webcasts and 3,972 viewers who have accessed archived webcasts. The two do not add up to the total number of viewers as a person could have watched both the live webcast and archived recording.
The webcast with the most live viewers so far this year was on the afternoon of 7 June when 333 people tuned in to see the Island’s new ministers being appointed.
The one with the most archive viewers was from the afternoon of 19 March with 246 archive viewers revisiting the sitting in which the Assembly took questions.
States Greffier Mark Egan said: ‘It’s really important to make the States Assembly more transparent and accessible so that Islanders can see what decisions are being taken, what’s being said, and how States Members are voting. Webcasting is an important part of achieving this and I’m delighted that it will be introduced for public meetings of committees and panels in the autumn.’
The current contract for the webcasting service for States meetings covers a five-year period and costs around £17,000 a year.
