‘The Serpent’ & ‘Line Of Duty’ Propel BBC iPlayer To Record Quarter Of 1.7B Streams

The BBC’s streaming service, iPlayer, enjoyed a record start to the year after series including Netflix co-production The Serpent and Line of Duty propelled it to 1.7 billion streams in the first three months of 2021.

Viewing to iPlayer was up 22% year-on-year in Q1 as Brits flocked to the streaming service during lockdown in the UK. Furthermore, the BBC said January was a record month, with iPlayer recording 652 million streams.

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The first episode of Mammoth Screen-produced The Serpent was iPlayer’s most-watched show in Q1 after it racked up 5.9M streams. It was followed by the first installment in Season 6 of police corruption drama Line of Duty, which was viewed 3.6M times.

Dan McGolpin, director of BBC iPlayer and channels, said: “BBC iPlayer is getting more viewing than ever in 2021 thanks to new must-watch series like The Serpent and Bloodlands, returning big hitters like Line of Duty and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK plus a broad range of box sets now available including Pretty Little Liars, Spiral and Not Going Out.”

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