BBC iPlayer continues to soar with 17 million downloads

The BBC's online on-demand TV service, iPlayer, continues to go from strength to strength, with 17 million programmes being downloaded or streamed in the past seven weeks.

iPlayer received its full marketing launch on Christmas Day last year after being launched in beta form in the summer, and last week it broke the 500,000 barrier for streamed or downloaded programmes in a single day.

BBC iPlayer: all the coverage

♦ BBC's iPlayer is go

♦ BBC iPlayer sparks broadband row

♦ 16,000 back iPlayer petition

♦ Leader: Time for a ceasefire in iPlayer row

♦ BBC tech chief hits back at iPlayer critics

♦ Open sourcers welcome BBC iPlayer for Linux

♦ BBC iPlayer gets 3.5 million hits

♦ Is online TV throttling broadband networks?

♦ iPlayer: Download version coming to Macs

Ashley Highfield, the BBC director of Future Media and Technology said: "We've seen a good and consistent climb in programmes watched. None of [the figures] look like they're in any way plateauing."

During January, around 2.2 million people used iPlayer with 11 million TV programmes being viewed and 15.9 million radio downloads made.

The most viewed programmes during the first seven weeks included Ashes to Ashes, the Six Nation's rugby coverage and David Attenborough's Life in Cold Blood.

The 'iPlayer effect' is also rubbing off on the rest of the BBC website, which has seen a 29 per cent year on year growth in weekly visitors, hitting 20 million in January.

Highfield announced iPlayer will also be available for the Apple iTouch and iPhone in the coming weeks. He said: "We're also very keen to expand beyond the PC and Mac onto other devices."

The download version of iPlayer for Macs is due this year, although no firm date has been made public.

And the iPlayer team is still hard at work - giving the homepage a facelift and rolling out a subtitle service in the next couple of weeks.

The homepage now has extra functionality including the 10 most popular programmes, Last Chance - for programmes about to expire - and Recently Added, which is updated every 10 minutes.

The BBC also announced it has signed up to put content on Yahoo!'s website along with partnerships with Microsoft's MSN and Blinkx that will go live soon.