BBC iPlayer usage on consoles up 74% since November

BBC iPlayer has hit a new milestone of 100 million requests per month for its TV programmes - one in eight of which are being viewed using a games console.

The landmark was reached in November and continued into December, when the service received 114.8 million requests.

It's a figure that has been boosted by its increased availability, according to the BBC, and one in eight requests are now coming from either a PlayStation 3 or a Wii - an increase of 74 per cent on November 2009.

iPlayer launched on the PlayStation 3 in September and on the Wii in November.

"Breaking the 100 million barrier is a great way to kick off 2010 and these figures show that by offering simple and varied access to BBC iPlayer people are really finding it easy to catch up with their favourite programmes at a time that suits them," said the BBC's director of future media and technology, Erik Huggers.

"I expect more people to start using the service as we continue to make it more widely available and I'm looking forward to some of the new innovations we have coming to the service later on in the year."

New Year's Day proved the most popular day for the iPlayer over the Christmas holiday, with David Tennant's final appearance as Doctor Who notching up 1.3 million requests alone.

Following the launch of the service on PlayStation 3, the BBC called the user response to it "amazing" as the console quickly became the second most popular platform for viewing after PC, accounting for 10 per cent of viewers.

At the moment, the Xbox 360 is the only console which doesn't offer BBC iPlayer due to an incompatibility with the BBC's remit to offer the service free to licence payers and Microsoft's charging of consumers to access its Live service.