BBC iPlayer’s record breaking start to 2021

BBC iPlayer’s record breaking start to 2021
APRIL 20, 2021 00.01 EUROPE/LONDON BY JULIAN CLOVER

The BBC’s streaming service is continue to grow audience. The BBC iPlayer has again reported its best quarter on record with over 1.7 billion streams in the first three months of the year.

This represents growth of 22 per cent when compared to the same period of 2020, helped by the success of new titles like The Serpent and Bloodlands, returning big hitters including Line of Duty and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and popular box sets like Pretty Little Liars, Spiral and Not Going Out.

Along the way a number of records have been broken on iPlayer. This includes the month of January, which is now iPlayer’s most successful month, with 652 million streams. The first full week of January (4th – 10th) was the biggest week ever, with 163 million streams. And the 10th of January is iPlayer’s best single day with programmes streamed 26 million times – driven partly by four very popular third round FA Cup matches streaming live on iPlayer, including Marine v Tottenham Hotspur.

So far this year the first episode of crime thriller The Serpent (pictured) is iPlayer’s biggest episode of the year so far, having been streamed 6 million times. The box set of the international series – which stars Tahar Rahim and Jenna Coleman as serial killer Charles Sobhraj and his accomplice and girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc – was streamed a total of 33 million times between January and March on iPlayer.