Bodyguard was BBC iPlayer's most-watched box set of 2018 with over 40m requests
New figures show Killing Eve, McMafia and Doctor Who were also hits with online viewers in the last 12 months
Fantastic news, ma'am: Bodyguard is the biggest show of the year so far on BBC iPlayer.
Not only did the first episode of the Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes drama achieve a record-breaking 10.5 million requests, but all six instalments of the show were in the platform's top ten episodes of the year. In fact, with 41.3 million requests in total, Bodyguard is BBC iPlayer’s biggest box set ever.
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It was also a huge year for the Golden Globe-nominated Phoebe Waller-Bridge spy thriller Killing Eve, whose first episode received 8.9 million requests. With an overall total of 40.7 million requests, the drama is the second biggest box set ever on the platform.
James Norton’s gangster drama McMafia also picked up plenty of views, receiving 4.5 million requests for its first episode. Plus, Welsh sleeper hit Keeping Faith had 3.9 million requests for its first episode.
Jodie Whittaker’s first full story as The Doctor in Doctor Who performed well, with 3.6 million requests – just ahead of the first episodes of the new series of Our Girl and The Cry, which achieved 3.4 million requests each.
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And in terms of live TV, England’s World Cup quarter-final against Sweden was the most popular show, with 2.8 million people watching as it happened on iPlayer.
The data also reveals that the service received a total of 311 million requests this November, an 8% rise on the same month last year. Dynasties' first episode, Chimpanzee, was the most popular programme of the month, with 2.3 million requests, followed by the airline advertising episode of The Apprentice with 1.8 million requests.
Bodyguard, Killing Eve, McMafia, Doctor Who, Our Girl and more hit show are all available to watch now as box sets on BBC iPlayer.
