BBC iPlayer set a new festive record of 141m programmes streamed during New Year week (27 December – 3 January), up 6 per cent on the same week last year. The New Year also started with a bang, with programmes streamed 143m times on iPlayer last week.

BBC iPlayer recorded its best festive day ever, with 22m streams on Sunday 2 January, boosted by the arrival of the box set of The Tourist. The series is currently the third most successful drama launch of all time on iPlayer – having been streamed over 18m times to date

In addition, BBC All-Screens+7 data (which reports on all viewing across linear BBC TV and BBC iPlayer during the first 7 days of availability) shows that for the period Dec 20 – Jan 4, Happy New Year Live! with an average audience of over 10.5m; the first episode of The Tourist (8.9m); and The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast (8.3m) were the most watched programmes on BBC TV and BBC iPlayer combined.

Christmas specials of Death in Paradise (8m), Call the Midwife (7.9m) and Strictly Come Dancing (7.4m) also performed well, along with new dramas A Very British Scandal (7.1m) and Around the World in 80 days (6m) which were watched live and on-demand by millions within their first seven days of availability.

“2022 on the BBC has started with a bang, with record viewing across Christmas and New Year on BBC iPlayer,” said BBC Chief Content Officer, Charlotte Moore. “Millions of people chose to watch our unrivalled range of box-sets and Christmas specials live on our channels, or binge on-demand across the festive season.”