NDM

BBC iPlayer sees record numbers over Christmas as tablets beat computers

The BBC have come to a new form of success via tablets and their IPlayer. Due to the increase of sales of tablets over the Christmas period. The BBC’s viewing from tablets had reached a landmark this year that had never been seen before. Their viewing from BBC IPlayer through tablets had overhauled any other device such as, computers and laptops. Tablets were seen to be the hot topic within 2013 as when BBC saw the sales of them increase it had not come to many surprise that the reviewing from tablets were about to increase.  Furthermore smartphone requests to use BBC IPlayer had also increased over this period to £1.6m. However they still are a long way behind overhauling computers let alone tablets.  On New Year’s Day BBC IPlayer experienced their best ever performance of IPLayer as they reached a show viewing of 11 million programmes, with 2.91 million coming from computers and 2.65 million from tablets. BBC Iplayer most popular show in New Year’s Day was Doctor Who, with the show receiving 1.96 million views.

·         A quote from Dan Taylor who is the head of the BBC iPlayer stated, “That tablet usage overtook viewing on computers as the most popular way to access the iPlayer from Boxing Day through to 30 December.”

·         On Boxing Day there were 2.2m iPlayer requests from tablets, compared to 2.1m from computers.

·         By New Year's Eve, tablet requests had dropped back to 1.93m, just a fraction behind computer requests at 1.95m.

·         Smartphones uses of BBC IPlayer had increased to £1.6m on Boxing Day.

·         The BBC said there were 941,000 downloads of the iPlayer mobile and tablet apps over the Christmas period, from 21 December to New Year's Day.

·         New Year's Day programme requests were up 35% year on year, from 8.1m in 2012.