BBC iplayer has its best week thanks to box sets

THE BBC’S attempt to beat Netflix and Amazon at their own game with bingewatch-friendly box sets has seen its iplayer service achieve its most-watched week on record.

The BBC has announced it received 10million more requests for programmes in the week Dec 25 to 31 compared with the same festive period last year, as it released entire series of old television shows to iplayer. Promoted in November as a “gift” to licence fee-payers, the decision saw programmes including Sherlock, Blue Planet and Peaky Blinders added to the BBC’S streaming service for viewers to watch at leisure. The provision of box sets echoes the methods of the BBC’S biggest digital rivals, and was widely interpreted as an attempt to beat Netflix and Amazon at their own game.

The digital streaming services do not release their audience figures, with no reliable method of comparing the channels yet developed. The BBC yesterday announced iplayer had enjoyed its “best-ever week of ratings”, in terms of the number of requests and weekly hours viewed.

There were 69.2 million requests to watch programmes and 25.6 million hours watched, compared to 58.6 million requests and 22.5 million hours watched the previous year. According to the data, the additional content has so far been requested more than 29.4million times.