BBC iPlayer use leaps to 2.2m people per month

by Daniel Farey-Jones Brand Republic 20-Feb-08, 11:00

LONDON - More than 2.2m people used the BBC's iPlayer to watch a TV programme in January, streaming or downloading an average of five shows each during the month, with 'Doctor Who' and spin-off 'Torchwood' leading the attractions.

Only UK residents are able to use the service, with a potential pool of 12.6m households equipped with broadband internet access, according to the Office for National Statistics' report for 2007.

Demand for the iPlayer has grown strongly since it was first marketed at Christmas.

In the first fortnight 250,000 programmes were downloaded or streamed per day and the BBC says it broke through 500,000 mark last week.

Adding the 15.9m radio downloads/streams to the 11m TV downloads/streams in January, gives a total of 26.9m requests during the month.

Between Christmas Day and February 12, the 'Doctor Who' Christmas special, which featured Kylie Minogue, was the most downloaded programme, followed by the Louis Theroux documentary 'Behind Bars', while three episodes of 'Torchwood' featured in the top ten.

With the BBC claiming the iPlayer is helping to attract up to 1.3m unique users to the BBC website bbc.co.uk each week, Ashley Highfield, director of BBC future media and technology, was upbeat.

"While it's early days, early indications are that BBC iPlayer is having a significant effect in attracting new users to bbc.co.uk.

"To build on this initial success, we continue to reach out to audiences wherever they are, and we now have BBC-branded channels on Yahoo! and partnerships with MSN and Blinkx going live soon."

The BBC website drew an average of 20m UK users per week in January, up 20% on a year ago.

The top ten most viewed programmes on iPlayer are:

1. Doctor Who
2. Louis Theroux Behind Bars
3. Torchwood
4. Ashes to Ashes
5. Torchwood
6. Six Nations Rugby
7. Top Gear
8. Mistresses
9. Mistresses
10. Torchwood

Comments

Gregory Allan - 20/02/2008

On demand is the future of TV but the technology used seems to be utilising P2P which may cause some issues with some users security settings and possibly a few hiccups with the new daft anti piracy legislation that the government is trying to pass. www.noundo.co.uk