David Farnor | On 30, Nov 2018

Killing Eve, Doctor Who and The Cry helped BBC iPlayer achieve its best month ever in October 2018.

A record-high 334 million requests were racked up across October, up 18 per cent on the same month last year. A new record for average daily requests was also set at 10.8 million. The result is BBC iPlayer’s busiest month on record, sitting ahead of January this year (328 million requests) and December last year (327 million).

The most popular episodes for the month are dominated by Killing Eve, which has six episodes in the top 10. The first episode is the most popular programme of the month, with over 3.5m requests, followed by Jodie Whittaker’s first episode as the Doctor in the new season of Doctor Who, with over 2.9m requests.

The Cry, starring Jenna Coleman, also performed very well, with 2.9m requests for the first episode and over 2m for the second. Other highlights include the return of The Apprentice, the continued success of Strictly Come Dancing, and the first episode of new drama Informer, which got over a 1.7m requests.

Dan McGolpin, controller of programming for the BBC, says: “It’s been a fantastic autumn for BBC iPlayer. Bodyguard and Killing Eve are the two strongest performing series ever and in October we set a new record for daily requests, which gave us our highest ever monthly total. Together with the return of Doctor Who, The Apprentice and Strictly BBC iPlayer offers a unique mix of brand new programmes alongside some of the nation’s best-loved shows.”

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