Happy Valley joins EastEnders and The Traitors as some of BBC iPlayer’s most streamed shows over Christmas and New Year

Viewers and listeners flocked to BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds in record numbers over the festive period with millions also watching on BBC TV and listening on BBC Radio.

On BBC iPlayer, every day across the ‘festive fortnight’ – 20 December to 2 January - programmes were streamed more times on iPlayer this year than last year - with 23 December, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day showing the highest growth year on year (+25% or more). The week of Boxing Day to New Year’s Day marked iPlayer’s best-ever ‘festive week’ with programmes streamed 165m times.

EastEnders, Call the Midwife, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, The Traitors and Sam Ryder Rocks New Year's Eve topped the list of most watched programmes.

Happy Valley had more than five million streams throughout the fortnight as series one and two were available on iPlayer before the drama returned to our screens on New Year’s Day.

The show ranked eighth on BBC iPlayer’s “top 20 most streamed programmes (titles).”

On BBC Sounds, there were a record 57.7 million plays of all content between 20 December and 2 January.

Charlotte Moore, BBC’s Chief Content Officer said: “Over the festive season, audiences chose the BBC in record breaking numbers on BBC iPlayer and Sounds for our world class content signalling a brilliant start to 2023 on the BBC.”

Happy Valley continues on BBC One on Sunday at 9pm.