Digital TV News

BBC iPlayer has over 100 million hits in December

Wednesday 20 January, 2010

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

The BBC’s online TV catch-up service, the iPlayer, received more than 100 million programme download requests during December of last year.

A special episode of Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear was the most watched programme on the BBC iPlayer during December, after receiving 1.08 million hits.

Episodes of EastEnders, Doctor Who and Gavin and Stacey also attracted a record number of viewers.

The online catch-up TV service from the BBC had 115 million programme download requests across all platforms during December 2009, including a record 17.3 million views in the week beginning December 28.

Erik Huggers, director of future media and technology at the BBC, said: “These figures show that by offering simple and varied access to the BBC iPlayer, people are really finding it easy to catch up with their favourite programmes at a time that suits them.”

Interestingly, one in eight of the programme download requests were from games console users. The BBC iPlayer is available on the Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3 console, as well as 18 other platforms.

Huggers added: “I expect more people to start using the service as we continue to make it more widely available, and I’m looking forward to some of the new innovations we have coming to the service later on in the year.”

Freesat, the subscription-free satellite TV service from the BBC and ITV, has recently made the iPlayer available to its users with Humax HD digital set-top boxes, and will be rolling-out a version for other Freesat customers soon.

Customers with Virgin Media’s cable TV can also watch the iPlayer directly on their TV screens.