BBC reports record iPlayer traffic over New Year

The BBC said that it received more iPlayer programme requests in the week from December 26 to January 1 than during any other week in the history of the catch-up service.

Announcing iPlayer stats for the festive period, the BBC said that during the week of New Year, 69.3 million programme requests were made.

December was also the BBC iPlayer’s best ever month, with 281 million programme requests logged, according to internal BBC figures.

By device type, connected TVs continued to be the most popular device for watching BBC iPlayer content, growing 7% on 2015 to reach a weekly average of 7.48 million unique browsers in December. Tablets came next at 4.19 million, followed by mobiles at 3.6 million, and computers 3.55 million.

The BBC also reported a “big surge” in live viewing on the iPlayer on New Year’s Eve with mobile viewing driving an 80% spike at around midnight.

For the period 20 December – 2 January, the most popular programmes by series were Eastenders, followed by Mrs Brown’s Boys, Outnumbered, Sherlock and Call The Midwife.

“Christmas is always a popular time for people to watch programmes on BBC iPlayer, but it’s fantastic to have had our best ever week in our best ever month over the festive season,” said head of BBC iPlayer, Dan Taylor-Watt.