Jana Bennett, director BBC Vision, has said 2008 has been a highly successful first year for the BBC iPlayer. Since its commercial launch on Christmas Day 2007, the online catch-up TV service has notched up 237 million views (to the end of November).
A further 61 million TV requests were made to Virgin Media’s cable service (to the end of October). In November there were over 35 million requests to view online.
“Our audiences have embraced BBC iPlayer but at the same time continue to value our channels as marks of real quality programming,” said Bennett.
Overall BBC TV channels have maintained a reach of 85% of television households, representing 47.9 million viewers. Digital channels BBC Three and BBC Four have both increased their share and reach. BBC Three has increased its share by 14% on the year to 3.9% while BBC Four is up from 12.7% to 13.6%.
CBeebies remains the most watched channel for the under 6’s with a reach this year of 47.7% and a 15.5% share.
