David Farnor | On 07, Jan 2014

Photo: Adrian Rogers (BBC)

Doctor Who dominated downloads on BBC iPlayer over Christmas 2013, the BBC has revealed.

The Time of The Doctor

102 million requests were received for TV and Radio programmes on iPlayer between the 21st December and New Year’s Day 2014, and Matt Smith’s farewell was top of the list, receiving 1.964 million download requests.

The second most popular programme was EastEnders, which accounted for roughly 1.5 million downloads apiece for the Christmas Day and Boxing Day episodes. Indeed, video on-demand comes into its own during the festive period, with families fighting for quality TV time with their favourite shows, often relying on catch-up services to watch things at a later date and keep the peace in the living room.

Sherlock was absent from the Christmas schedules, but the mini episode previewing the sleuth’s New Year’s Day return, called Many Happy Returns, was viewed over 1.5 million times on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Red Button, with millions more watching it on YouTube.

The Day of the Tablet

Writing on the BBC blogs, Dan Taylor, Head of BBC iPlayer, reveals that this Christmas was the year that saw viewers increasingly relying on mobile devices to stream programmes. Indeed, tablet viewing overtook computer viewing for the first time in iPlayer history on Boxing Day. That remained the case until New Year’s Eve, when computer viewing took back the top spot.

Almost a million people downloaded the iPlayer mobile and tablet apps over the festive period, adds Taylor, adding to the 20 million app downloads the app had notched up in October 2013.

The Year of iPlayer

The festive period ended on a high, as the start of 2014 marked the busiest day on BBC iPlayer ever. Almost 11 million requests for TV and radio programmes were received in that one day alone, a surge of 35 per cent from 2013, when New Year’s Day received 8.1 million requests. (That rise excludes Sky and Virgin data, which isn’t available until a later date, so might be even higher.)

The top 20 BBC iPlayer programme requests (millions):

1 Doctor Who – The Time of the Doctor 1.964

2 EastEnders – 25 Dec 1.595

3 EastEnders – 26 Dec 1.380

4 Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special 1 – 1.364

5 EastEnders – 27 Dec 1.257

6 Call the Midwife Christmas Special – 1.021

7 Gangsta Granny – 1.016

8 EastEnders – 31 Dec 0.961

9 EastEnders – 30 Dec 0.937

10 EastEnders – 24 Dec 0.922

11 EastEnders – 23 Dec 0.872

12 Still Open All Hours – 26 Dec 0.842

13 Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special 2 – 0.820

14 EastEnders – 20 Dec 0.793

15 Death Comes to Pemberley Episode 1 – 0.771

16 Citizen Khan Series 2 Episode 7 – 0.751

17 Michael McIntyre’s Showtime – 25 Dec 0.643

18 Strictly Come Dancing Series 11 Grand Final – 0.626

19 Nativity! – 0.586

20 Atlantis – Episode 12 Part 1 0.584

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