Drama titles top March iPlayer stats

Drama series The Night Manager topped the list of programme requests for BBC iPlayer in March, with 2.013 million requests for episode three. Night Manager episodes took five of the top 10 most requested programmes for the month, with drama Thirteen taking four of the top 10 slots.

March was a strong month for both BBC iPlayer and BBC iPlayer Radio, with total figures up 3% compared to February

Month-on-month increases were seen across both TV and Radio, despite an estimated undercount of eight million TV requests from Android and Xbox devices, with Android devices undercounted by an estimated eight million requests and Xbox requests also being undercounted.

In terms of requests to the BBC’s on-demand TV service by device types, TV platform distribution has been edging up, accounting for 16% of requests n March and 20% of TV requests. TV connected devices as a whole now account for 26% of all requests, and 32% of TV requests.

Separately, the BBC has reached a record weekly audience of 348 million people worldwide, a 13% increase on last year, according to new figures released by the broadcaster.

The BBC Global Audience Measure represents the combined measured reach of international content, both news and entertainment, for the year 2015/16.

The latest statistics show that the BBC’s weekly global news audience has increased by 38 million people, or 13%, to a total of 320 million.

For the second year running, television, with a reach of 162 million, is a bigger platform than radio, with 147 million, for the BBC’s international news services. All platforms have grown since last year, including digital, with a reach of 80 million.