The BBC has revealed that the first episode of Blue Planet 2 has become the most-streamed program on iPlayer in 2017, beating out Taboo by over 100,000 requests.

This number of streams is likely to now increase after the BBC made the entire series available to stream in 4K HDR after the conclusion of the final episode. 

Other popular shows from this year have included Doctor Foster, Three Girls and Sherlock, many of which will be returning to the service over the Christmas period after their initial 30-day catchup period expired. 

“Alexa, play The Archers”

Alongside the developments in iPlayer, the BBC has also been hard at work integrating its radio stations with Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem. 

It’s launched a dedicated Alexa skill that will allow you to access its radio stations using an Amazon Echo device, and you’ll also be able to access the BBC’s podcasts via the same voice skill. 

Although the BBC’s radio stations are currently available through Alexa via TuneIn, we’ve found that podcast support can be patchy, especially when using your voice, with Alexa failing to pick out the right podcast from the thousands available via TuneIn. 

We’re hoping this new skill smooths out this functionality, but we’ll have to test it for ourselves before we pass our full judgement.