iPlayer Has Record Viewing Figures For October
After the record viewing figures from Hulu for October, The BBC has revealed that its iPlayer service has had its best month since launch for October. The iPlayer showed a total of 79.3 million streams for the month from 1.1 million users.
The amount of daily requests for television and radio content which was average 2.6 million every day was also a new record. Of the 79.3 million requests, 53.2 million were for television content and 26.1 million was for radio content.
During October the iPlayer attracted an average of 1.1 million users, the highest figure on record. 700,000 requested TV content only, 300,000 radio content only, and 40,000 requesting both types of media.
iPlayer record month in October
The busiest time for the iPlayer were the last two weeks of October, partly attributed to the controversial appearance of the British National Party leader Nick Griffin on the political discussion show Question Time which saw a jump in traffic for that period. Apart from Question Time, popular shows were Strictly Come Dancing and Merlin
Watching TV on PC was still the primary use for iPlayer, representing 85% of requests. (The figures exclude the TV version of the iPlayer available on the Virgin Media cable network). The iPhone/iPod Touch and PS3 applications are still delivering significant numbers of TV requests at 7% and 6% respectively.
Catchup on demand tv made for the bulk of requests for October with only 4% of viewing was to live streams, though these services are relatively new for the BBC. The iPlayer is used roughly at the same time as watching traditional TV, but with more useage during the daytime and late at night.
Top BBC iPlayer episodes for October 2009
Total requests per episode
| 1 | Question Time 22/10/09 | 928,000 |
| 2 | Life | 664,000 |
| 3 | Russell Howard’s Good News | 410,000 |
| 4 | Mock the Week Series 6 | 371,000 |
| 5 | Never Mind the Buzzcocks | 362,000 |
| 6 | EastEnders | 353,000 |
| 7 | Merlin | 334,000 |
| 8 | Michael McIntyre’s Comedy show | 321,000 |
| 9 | Strictly Come Dancing | 317,000 |
| 10 | Emma | 240,000 |
| 11 | Have I Got News for You | 233,000 |
| 12 | Top Gear | 231,000 |
| 13 | Criminal Justice | 229,000 |
| 14 | How Not To Live Your Life | 192,000 |
| 15 | harlie Brooker’s Gameswipe | 185,000 |
| 16 | Shooting Stars | 179,000 |
| 17 | The Armstrong & Miller Show | 179,000 |
| 18 | Masterchef: The Professionals | 173,000 |
| 19 | The World’s Strictest Parents | 157,000 |
| 20 | That Mitchell and Webb Look | 156,000 |
Source: BBC iStat
The stats are interesting in that they confirm that the iPlayer is along with Hulu in the US, the driving force behind the growth of internet TV. Also of interest is that the vast majority of use is to catch up on missed programming rather than watching live streams.
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