The BBC’s serving up of iPlayer boxsets has helped the UK’s most popular catch-up service secure its best-ever weekly viewing figures.
A selection of Doctor Who regeneration stories, as well as complete boxsets of Peaky Blinders, Taboo and Wolf Hall were available in their entirety, allowing licence feee viewers to binge watch some of their favourite TV shows and moments.
The extra content has so far been requested more than 29.4 million times – an average of 1.7 million times a day – with Peaky Blinders clocking up more than 8m requests so far. Viewers only have a few days left if they want to watch more of the special shows.
Christmas week (Monday December 25 to Sunday December 31) was BBC iPlayer’s best ever week, both for requests (69.2 million) and for weekly hours (25.6 million) – up considerably on last year, when there were 58.6m requests and 22.5m hours watched.
The record BBC iPlayer figures come on top of strong viewing figures for BBC One’s Christmas Day TV, with 9.6 million watching Call the Midwife on TV, 9 million seeing Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special, and more than 8 million tuning in to see the Strictly Christmas Special and EastEnders.
Charlotte Moore, BBC Director of Content, said: “It’s hugely exciting to see such unprecedented numbers come to BBC iPlayer this Christmas.
“The public have responded in their millions to the amazing range of content we’ve offered – and for those who are loving our special Christmas box set collection there are still a few days to go.”
The most popular show on BBC iPlayer over the whole festive period (18-31 December) was the EastEnders Christmas Day episode, which saw 1.6 million requests as tragedy struck the Branning family on the roof of the Queen Vic.
EastEnders has nine episodes in the top 20, which also saw strong showings for the Apprentice final, the finale of Peaky Blinders fourth series, Doctor Who’s Twice Upon a Time special and the Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas special.
The top ten BBC iPlayer episodes over the festive period were:
| Programme title | Requests | |
| 1 | EastEnders – 25/12/2017 | 1,627,000 |
| 2 | EastEnders – 26/12/2017 | 1,569,000 |
| 3 | Peaky Blinders Series 4 – The Company Episode 6 | 1,397,000 |
| 4 | The Apprentice Series 13 – The Final Episode 14 | 1,139,000 |
| 5 | EastEnders – 28/12/2017 – Part 2 28/12/2017 | 1,132,000 |
| 6 | EastEnders – 28/12/2017 – Part 1 28/12/2017 | 1,132,000 |
| 7 | EastEnders – 24/12/2017 | 1,079,000 |
| 8 | EastEnders – 22/12/2017 | 1,049,000 |
| 9 | Doctor Who – Twice Upon a Time 25/12/2017 | 1,045,000 |
| 10 | Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Specials 2017 – Episode 1 | 1,033,000 |