Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Normal People and Killing Eve top lockdown viewing on iPlayer

Daisy Edgar-Jones as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell in the BBC Three adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People (Enda Bowe/BBC)
Daisy Edgar-Jones as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell in the BBC Three adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People (Enda Bowe/BBC)

Lockdown gave the BBC its best ever quarter for iPlayer, with 1.6 billion requests in the April-June period, the corporation has said.

This was an increase of more than half (59%) on the same quarter last year.

A record-breaking number of viewers used the streaming service in the first half of 2020, with 3.1 billion requests to stream programmes, up by 47% on the previous year.

Viewing was already up prior to the UK lockdown, with the first quarter a third (34%) higher than the same quarter for 2019.

BBC Three drama Normal People, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal, and the third series of Killing Eve make up all of the top 10 most popular episodes so far this year.

The series premiere of Killing Eve, called Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey, took the top spot with seven million requests, while the first episode of Normal People came second with 5.5 million requests.

The 12-part adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Irish novel received 54.8 million requests over the whole series – the highest for a drama series so far this year, the BBC said.

Dan McGolpin, controller of BBC iPlayer, said: “It’s fantastic to see record viewing levels on BBC iPlayer across the first half of 2020, with huge numbers for the brand new and simply unmissable Normal People and for hotly anticipated returners like Killing Eve, This Country and Race Across The World.

“In a year full of challenges, BBC iPlayer has entertained us, connected us to events like the virtual Glastonbury and the restarted football season, broadened our horizons through Culture in Quarantine, educated our younger family members through BBC Bitesize and all the while kept us informed of the latest news from around the globe.”