Record number of kids turn to the BBC for education and entertainment

– Record-breaking 40.8m requests for Children’s shows on BBC iPlayer
– 5.8m unique visitors to BBC Bitesize website for home schooling help
– 971k requests for Bitesize Daily on BBC iPlayer
– 800k visitors for CBeebies apps

Last week (11-17 January), children’s programming on BBC iPlayer was requested a record breaking 40.8m times as children turn to the BBC for education and entertainment during lockdown. The figures are the highest BBC Children’s has ever achieved on iPlayer, beating last year’s record of 40.2m requests.

 

The BBC’s education offer, Lockdown Learning, which rolled out across more platforms last week, attracted 5.8m users to the Bitesize website, an increase of 12% from the first week of Bitesize Daily on 20 April 2020.

 

On BBC iPlayer, Bitesize Daily was requested 971k times with lessons for 5-7 year olds proving the most popular, accounting for 439k requests.

 

Lockdown Learning on BBC Two and CBBC also saw a big increase in audience numbers, with CBBC’s average audience for the slot increasing by 355% across the week. The overnight average audience for BBC Two was 290k, a 5% increase vs the slot average over the previous 52 weeks.

 

CBeebies programming performed particularly strongly on BBC iPlayer, breaking its own record for number of BBC iPlayer requests in a single week. In total there were 32.3m requests for CBeebies programming.

 

The four CBeebies apps had more than 800,000 unique visitors last week, proving Playtime Island, Go Explore, Get Creative and Storytime continue to attract pre-schoolers in their droves.

 

Patricia Hidalgo, Director of BBC Children’s and Education, says: “As with the last lockdown, BBC Children’s and Education continues to provide vital support, entertainment and educational resources for parents and children across the UK. We are thrilled that millions of households are making use of these services for home-schooling help and some much needed entertainment.”