Digital TV News

1 million Brits watched live EastEnders on iPlayer

Friday 19 March, 2010

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

A record number of Brits logged onto the BBC iPlayer during February, to find out who murdered Archie in a live episode of EastEnders.

The online TV catch-up service from the BBC is continuing to grow, as more and more viewers are using it to watch episodes of their favourite programmes.

The BBC iPlayer was used by an average of 1.4 million people every day last month, according to figures from the BBC released yesterday.

A live episode of EastEnders was the most-watched programme on the iPlayer, with over 1 million viewers logging on to find out who killed Archie and watch Bradley fall to his death.

The BBC iPlayer is a free service and is available to watch online, on Virgin Media’s on-demand menu and on Freesat if you have a Humax set-top box. It can also be viewed on mobile phones, such as the iPhone, and via games consoles such as the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PS3.

The BBC is planning to make the iPlayer more accessible on a wider range of platforms. Some new TV sets, such as the new Samsung LED range, have the iPlayer built-in.

Erik Huggers, head of future media and technology at the BBC, said in an interview with the Telegraph, that the catch-up TV service will soon expand to partner sites like Facebook and Twitter, to make the iPlayer viewing experience “more social”.

“We are close to launching the third version of the iPlayer in beta which will have many more social functions embedded within it,” said Huggers.

“People will be able to bring their Facebook friends onto the iPlayer so they can share what they are listening to or watching with each other more easily.”