BBC iPlayer has seen its best year ever, breaking 7 billion streams for the first time ever. In fact, 2022 grew 9% on 2021, and ended the year with both the best month and best quarter iPlayer has ever seen, with 700 million streams for December and 2 billion streams between October and December.
The World Cup capped the year in spectacular fashion, streamed a huge 92 million times on iPlayer, while also reaching 38.8 million on BBC TV. At the same time, the return of “Peaky Blinders” was the top episode of 2022, streamed 6.9 million times across the year, with over 55 million streams for the boxset. Other top boxsets of the year include “Doctor Who” (56 million streams), “Waterloo Road (2006-2015)” (46 million streams), and “Death in Paradise” (46 million streams).
Sporting events were also among the most-watched programmes of the year, including Commonwealth Games (53 million streams, plus reached 28.6 million on BBC TV) and Wimbledon (43 million streams, plus reached 27.4 million on BBC TV). Moreover, new dramas dominate the most watched episodes per series of the year – with “The Tourist,” “The Responder,” “SAS Rogue Heroes,” “Inside Man,” “Sherwood,” and “This is Going to Hurt” all making the top ten most streamed episodes.
“2022 saw huge growth for BBC iPlayer. 7 billion streams is double where we were a few years ago. Alongside the big events like the World Cup and the outstanding coverage of the state funeral for Queen Elizabeth II, people arrived in their millions to watch an array of big drama boxsets including the final series of ‘Peaky Blinders’ and a large number of brand new series such as ‘The Tourist,’ ‘The Responder’ and ‘SAS Rogue Heroes.’ Over the last year we have added more choice than ever before in every genre, with plenty more in store for 2023,” commented Dan McGolpin, Director of BBC iPlayer.
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