The BBC has announced that tablet BBC iPlayer viewings overtook computer access for the first time.
For the first time since BBC iPlayer launched in July 2007, more viewers were accessing BBC on-demand content via their tablets than from their PCs.
The Christmas 2013 period saw a marked increase in the amount of tablet users accessing BBC iPlayer, and on Boxing Day the tablet users surged higher than the computer access numbers.
“With new gadgets being at the top of many Christmas wish lists, we see a lot of new devices accessing BBC iPlayer over the holiday period,” said Dan Taylor, Head of BBC iPlayer.
The BBC iPlayer mobile and tablet app proved exceedingly popular with viewers trying to catch up on Christmas broadcasting on the BBC, especially those who had been delivered a new tablet like the iPad Air or Google Nexus 7 2013 by Santa.
Look at the tablet viewings surge after Christmas Day.
“Almost a million of you downloaded the iPlayer mobile and tablet apps over the festive period (Saturday 21 December to New Year’s Day), 941,000 of you to be exact, adding to the 20 million app downloads iPlayer reached in October.”
Nearly 11 million BBC iPlayer requests occurred on New Year’s Day, January 1 2014 for radio and TV content, the busiest day on iPlayer ever. This even showed a huge 35 per cent increase on the same day in 2013, on which 8.1 million requests were recorded.
Over the Christmas period, there were over 102 million TV and radio content requests on BBC iPlayer, with the top watched programmes including Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor, Eastenders, and Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special.
It’s worth remembering that the BBC’s data currently excludes Sky and Virgin Cable views as the data hasn’t yet been collated. This means that the viewing figures will be even higher than those posted now.
Read more: Best tablets of 2013
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
