The FIFA World Cup saw a huge increase in demand for the iPlayer, with requests growing 19% year on year in July.
In total 281m people used the catch-up service, with 6 of the 10 top requests being for World Cup football. Preventing the football clean sweep were Our Girl, which was the 6th most requested programme and Eastenders which took slots 8, 9 and 10.
“It’s been an incredible summer of sport on the BBC, and that together with our summer box sets selection has helped BBC iPlayer to grow strongly on last year. England’s quarter-final against Sweden was the BBC’s highest online-viewed live programme ever,” said Dan Taylor-Watt, head of BBC iPlayer.
3.151m watched Sweden against England on the iPlayer, compared to 2.051m who watched the France versus Belgium semi final, which was the second most popular programme in July.
It wasn’t just catch-up though, as live TV viewing made up 26% of all requests on the service during July. That’s the highest share of live viewing since the 2016 Olympics.
