BBC reports record-breaking Christmas for iPlayer

The BBC reported a record-breaking 227 million programme requests for its iPlayer catch-up service during December, up 25% year-on-year. 

Revealing the most recent stats, head of TV content for BBC iPlayer Victoria Jaye said that Christmas week figures were also at a high this year with 54.5m requests logged.

Meanwhile, New Year’s Day was “the best day on record” for the catch-up player with 5.2 million unique browsers.

“We ran a survey throughout the holiday period, and found a third of people used BBC iPlayer more than usual, and over a quarter ‘binged’ by watching two or more episodes back-to-back,” said Jaye.

According to the BBC’s stats, mobiles and tablets drove the greatest increase in BBC iPlayer usage, with both delivering more requests than computers over Christmas week.

The broadcaster also reported a 150,000 spike in app downloads on Christmas, which it attributed to people using new devices.

The top two requested programmes on the iPlayer during Christmas week were car show Top Gear and soap opera Eastenders, with 2.08 million and 1.69 million requests respectively.

The BBC also noted that 14% of journeys from the iPlayer homepage to programme playback pages came through its specially curated Christmas collections of programmes tailored for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve.

“This is encouraging if you compare it to ‘Most Popular’ which accounts for 53% of Homepage journeys and our top promotional slot on the iPlayer Homepage, which accounts for 15% of journeys,” said Jaye.