Festive schedule sees BBC iPlayer usage soar

From Top Gear and EastEnders, to Doctor Who and Mrs Browns’s Boys, the BBC’s Christmas schedule saw iPlayer usage soar, driven primarily by mobiles and tablets.

December saw a record-breaking 227 million requests (excluding Sky and Virgin Cable), up 25% on December 2013, with the Christmas week also reaching an all-time high of 54.5 million requests.

New Year’s Day was also the best day on record, with 5.2 million unique browsers, while the BBC iPlayer app reached 30 million downloads – with 150,000 on Christmas Day alone.

With linear TV dominating over Christmas, the BBC has accounted mobiles and tablets as the main drivers of iPlayer traffic, with tablet requests rising 31% week on week during the Christmas week.

The BBC also found that certain programmes were more popular on some devices than others. While Top Gear was in the top three for all devices (computer, mobile, tablet and connected TVs), the Christmas Day EastEnders episode took precedence on tablets and mobiles, and the Boxing Day EastEnders was the second most popular programme on mobiles across the week. Mrs Brown’s Boys did particularly well on connected TVs, and The Boy in the Dress took second place on tablets.

“Christmas on the BBC is an incredibly special time of year, with our broadcast schedules bursting with amazing shows,” said the Corporation’s head of TV content for iPlayer, Victoria Jaye.

“It’s also the time of year when we see a significant surge in BBC iPlayer usage, as people all over the country un-wrap new devices and take the opportunity to enjoy our terrific range of programmes, at a time that suits them.”