Concert for tragedy most seen show on iPlayer

THE ONE Love Manchester concert became the most-watched BBC programme on iPlayer in June, beating the General Election, Poldark and Doctor Who in viewer numbers.

Some 2,057,000 watched the show via the online streaming service as it was broadcast live on June 4, with stars such as Niall Horan, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and Coldplay’s Chris Martin joining Ariana Grande to pay tribute to the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing, who included a number of people from Yorkshire.

It beat audience numbers for the first hours of the big UK vote coverage four days later, which was requested by 1,314,000 people. Releasing the figures, the BBC said June proved to be the biggest months for live programme requests on iPlayer since the Olympics last August.

At the top of the list for drama, and third overall, was the first episode of Broken, starring Sean Bean as a northern Catholic priest.

It was requested by 1,255,000 viewers, followed by an episode of EastEnders with 1,118,000 requests.

Episode eight of the latest series of Doctor Who came in fifth for requests (1,038,000) followed by the second episode of new drama Paula (992,000) and the Poldark season three debut (934,000).

The coverage of Glastonbury Festival was also popular among live broadcasts, with a total of 4.5 million viewers watching over both iPlayer and the BBC’s Glastonbury web page.

Sunday night headliner Ed Sheeran proved to be the most popular act, attracting 955,000 online viewers, followed by the Foo Fighters’ fireworks-fuelled show on the Saturday, which was watched by 918,000 people.