Normal People on BBC Three has doubled record for programme requests on iPlayer
Posted: 5th May 2020
The release of Normal People has driven BBC Three to its best week ever for programme requests on iPlayer, more than doubling the previous record.
The drama, produced by Element Pictures and supported by Screen Ireland, adapted from Sally Rooney’s novel of the same name and starring Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones as Connell and Marianne, has been a hit with audiences and critics alike, and has received over 16.2 million requests for the series in its first week of availability, with nearly five million requests from 16-34s. Of all the requests for BBC Three programmes on iPlayer, Normal People makes up for over 70 percent of the total and according to signed in data, a quarter of all accounts requesting it have already watched the whole series. The previous record for BBC Three was 10.8 million total requests in a week, following the release of the first series of the award-winning Killing Eve in 2018.
Piers Wenger, Controller of BBC Drama, and Rose Garnett, Director of BBC Films, say: "BBC audiences have been bewitched by the story of Connell and Marianne, just as we were after reading the transcript of Sally’s extraordinary novel. Taking Normal People from script to screen has been an incredible experience and we’re overwhelmed by the response.
"Lead writers Sally and Alice, directors Lenny and Hettie, all the team at Element Pictures and of course Daisy and Paul should all be so proud of what has been achieved."
The drama is the first series to be supported by Screen Ireland's inaugural TV Drama Production fund, and is Screen Ireland's first indigenous high-end TV drama, with longstanding Irish talent like Ed Guiney, Lenny Abrahamson, writer Mark O'Rowe, and cinematographers Kate McCullough and Suzie Lavelle leading the production.