Thirteen, BBC Three’s most successful show since the channel moved to online alone, has pulled in an iPlayer audience on a par with the hit series Sherlock.
Some 2.4 million requests have so far been made for the kidnap drama, equally the new year special for the popular detective series.
The BBC has released the details two months after it switched off its linear transmissions, ostensibly as cost saving measure.
The youth-skewing channel is arguably the one that would perform best in the online environment. Thirteen, Sex In Strange Places, Cuckoo and Life And Death Row have all been placed in the Top 5 most watched programmes on the BBC iPlayer. Under the terms of the switch, made by the BBC Trust, any original content shown online through BBC Three must also receive a linear channel outing. So the shows mentioned will have been screened on BBC One or BBC Two with the momentum the two popular channels help them carry.
“It’s great our shows are reaching our audience but I want success at BBC Three to be defined by more than just numbers. Appreciation, engagement and impact are just as important,” said Damian Kavanagh, Controller BBC Three.
Kavanagh said BBC Three had also been experimenting with Box Sets – akin to Netflix releasing all episodes of a new show at the same time. Flat TV, the Tom Rosenthal and Naz Osmanoglu comedy, was released in this way as have BBC Three classics including Some Girls and In The Flesh.
The channel has also been experimenting with show length, outside the traditional half-hour and hour-long formats.