The BBC has said that 3.5 million programmes have been watched but over a million viewers since its iPlayer was launched on Christmas Day.

Although the player has had a turbulent past it seems the decision to offer a streaming service has paid off as only just under 400,000 programmes were actually downloaded eight times less than streamed.
Users watched on average 25 minutes of programming with the usual shows most watched on TV also coming out top, Doctor Who, Eastenders and Extras being a few of the top shows.

The figures seem to echo a Tiscali TV Trends report which says that 64 per cent of viewers believe the schedules restrict their viewing too much. The reasons for downloading content are catching up on a missed programme (58 per cent), flexibility (49 per cent) and overcoming schedule clashes (39 per cent).

It also revealed that 62 per cent watched the content on their TV's rather than using a PC.