BBC iPlayer has recorded more than 5 billion annual requests in a month for the first time in its history.
With the year’s end just weeks away, romantic drama series Normal People has been named as the most popular show of the year.
Between the January 1st and the end of November there have been 62 million requests to stream the BBC’s adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel on iPlayer. Killing Eve’s third series is the second most popular of the year, with 39 million requests.
Between January and November there were 5.3 billion requests to stream iPlayer content, 33% of the same period last year, and already 850 million requests ahead of the whole of 2019.
Dan McGolpin, controller of BBC iPlayer, said: “It’s been a tough year for so many of us but through two national lockdowns and many difficult months BBC iPlayer has been there to keep us entertained and well informed wherever you are throughout the UK, seeing 5 billion requests for the first time ever.”
As with other streaming services, lockdown has had a significant effect on the numbers.
Children were given their own specially curated iPlayer experience built around content from CBeebies, CBBC and other suitable BBC programmes and brands. Children’s shows Bing, Hey Duggee, Numberblocks, In the Night Garden and Peter Rabbit were particularly popular.
There were also increases in news audiences with over 480 million requests for News content on iPlayer across the year, up 91 per cent on January to November in 2019. The biggest single day for news content on iPlayer was 31st October, when the second national lockdown was announced, with 5.4 million requests.
In contrast there were 4.6 million requests on 23rd March, the day the Prime Minister announced the first lockdown, while the reaction following the US election on November 5th resulted in 3 million requests.
