The BBC has hailed 2013 as the year of the tablet after its popularity as a Christmas present saw viewing of TV programmes on the iPlayer via such devices pass laptop and desktop computers for the first time.
Dan Taylor, head of the BBC iPlayer, said that tablet usage overtook viewing on computers as the most popular way to access the iPlayer from Boxing Day through to 30 December.
'With new gadgets being at the top of many Christmas wishlists, we see a lot of new devices accessing BBC iPlayer over the holiday period,' said Taylor, in a post on the BBC internet blog. '2013 truly proved to be the year of the tablet and after they were all unwrapped, Boxing Day saw tablet viewing overtake computer viewing for the first time in iPlayer history.'
On Boxing Day there were 2.2m iPlayer requests from tablets, compared to 2.1m from computers.
Requests from mobile devices such as smartphones also rose significantly on Boxing Day, however at just under 1.6m they remained some way below tablets and computers.
By New Year's Eve, tablet requests had dropped back to 1.93m, just a fraction behind computer requests at 1.95m.
New Year's Day was the iPlayer's best-ever day, with nearly 11m programme requests, as computers (2.91m viewing requests) stayed ahead of tablets (2.65m).
The shift in consumer media consumption habits has been dramatic over the past year, during the festive period of 2012 tablet usage was typically less than half that of computer viewing on the iPlayer.
'Christmas Day TV is all about families gathering around the biggest screen of the house and most viewing on the day is via broadcast TV,' said Taylor. 'BBC iPlayer has an important role as a complementary platform for BBC broadcast programmes, especially on Boxing Day and New Year's Day, when requests on iPlayer really start to peak and you have time to catch-up on the must-watch Christmas programmes.'
The BBC said there were 941,000 downloads of the iPlayer mobile and tablet apps over the festive period, from 21 December to New Year's Day.
New Year's day programme requests were up 35% year on year, from 8.1m in 2012.
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