BBC iPlayer - June 2014 radio figures released

By James Cridland for media.info
Posted 1 August 2014, 9.08am edt

The latest BBC iPlayer figures (pdf) are out, covering the BBC's radio and television use during the month of June on the BBC's online service.

There were 70 million requests for radio content (both live and on-demand audio) during June. This represents a growth of less than 2% year-on-year, and a fall from May's 71 million.

The figures show a change in consumption patterns. Year-on-year, requests from mobile phones have increased by 75%. Tablet use has doubled. However, use from computers - laptops and desktops - have decreased by nearly 30%.

Now, 28% of iPlayer use for radio is done on a mobile device (phone or tablet), and 46% of use is on a computer. The figures show around 25% of requests being from an 'unknown' device due to technical restrictions.

Radio listening in the BBC iPlayer is predominantly live, with only 18% of requests to on-demand content. By contrast, for television, 86% of all requests were for on-demand content.

BBC iPlayer Radio peak usage is just after 9.00am in the morning, with further peaks at midday, 5.00pm and 11.00pm. This differs from radio listening across all platforms, which has a pronounced breakfast peak and a slow decline during the rest of the day.

BBC iPlayer do not release listening duration statistics.

The top twenty radio programmes on BBC iPlayer this month was dominated by Test Match Special coverage of the England v Sri Lanka cricket match. The News Quiz, the Fifa World Cup, and the Chris Evans Breakfast Show also had multiple showings in the list. Also in the top twenty were the Today Programme and the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show from Wednesday June 25th.

[Edit 4.39pm: Of note: these figures do not include data from the BBC's podcast service.]