Vatican City - It only launched last Friday, but already the papal Youtube channel is losing viewers.
A total of 90,411 hits were registered on Vatican YouTube on its launch day, Jan 24. By Monday, the audience for the English language version of the site, which features videos of Pope Benedict's addresses had fallen to 31, 558 views, according to the video measuring service TubeMogul.
The channel, which uses existing content broadcast on Vatican tv and radio channels. Users are not permitted to post comments or ratings while the Vatican Channel does not allow for its videos to be embedded on third-party sites, a factor which may prevent the google site from attracting a larger web audience.
The Vatican hopes to broaden Pope Benedict’s outreach through the channel. In his first appearance on Youtube on Friday, the Pope described the internet as a “great family that knows no borders.”