New devices unwrapped over Christmas saw Boxing Day tablet viewing overtake the computer for the first time in iPlayer history.
Dan Taylor, head of the BBC iPlayer, BBC Future Media said 2013 was the year of the tablet. “Christmas Day TV is all about families gathering around the biggest screen of the house and most viewing on the day is via broadcast TV. BBC iPlayer has an important role as a complementary platform for BBC broadcast programmes, especially on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, when requests on iPlayer really start to peak and you have time to catch-up on the must-watch Christmas programmes.”
However, it was New Year’s Day 2014 that became the iPlayer’s most successful day to date with close to 11 million requests for TV and radio programmes, even without data from Sky and Virgin Media that is made available at a later stage.
941,000 downloaded the mobile and tablet apps over Christmas, adding to the 20 million app downloads iPlayer reached in October.
BBC iPlayer: daily requests for TV programmes by device type (millions). (Source: BBC)
