The Stage

BBC iPlayer pulls in a million requests a day

Published Thursday 4 December 2008 at 17:35 by Matthew Hemley

BBC iPlayer received more than a million viewing requests a day last month, according to data released by the Corporation.

In a statement, the BBC said last month alone there were more than 35 million requests to view its content using the online catch-up service, and that total requests for BBC iPlayer views reached 237 million to the end of November.

Elsewhere, the figures showed that BBC television reached 85% - 47.9 million viewers - with peak time audience share up year-on-year from 35.1% to 35.3%, and overall share steady at 33.5%.

BBC1’s share in peak time has grown year on year from 23.7% to 23.9%, while its overall share was 21.8%.

BBC2 recorded an overall share of 7.8% and BBC3 was up 14% year on year, to 3.9%.

Meanwhile, BBC4’s share rose from 0.8% to 1.0%.

BBC Vision director Jana Bennett said: “Our portfolio continues to thrive in an extremely competitive market, driven by a huge range of brilliant content. Our audiences have embraced BBC iPlayer but at the same time continue to value our channels as marks of real quality programming.”