The Serpent attracts 31m iPlayer requests
February 15, 2021
Crime thriller The Serpent has become iPlayer’s most popular new BBC programme since Normal People, with 31 million streams across the series so far.
The eight-part drama – starring Tahar Rahim, Jenna Coleman, Billy Howle and Ellie Bamber – launched on January 1st and concluded its BBC One run on February 14th.
The first episode of The Serpent is also BBC iPlayer’s most streamed episode of anything – across all genres – since Normal People in spring 2020, with over 5.5 million streams on iPlayer alone so far.
Including linear viewing, episode one has received a 30-day consolidated figure of 9 million viewers across all-screens (the highest figure for a new BBC title since The Salisbury Poisonings), with episode two consolidating at 7.4 million viewers.
Damien Timmer and Preethi Mavahalli, executive producers for Mammoth Screen, said: “It’s been a privilege to tell the real life story of Herman and Angela Knippenberg’s dogged pursuit of justice, and to have a chance to reclaim the stories of the young travellers whose lives were so cruelly cut short. We’re absolutely thrilled to see the British public come to the series in such vast numbers.”
Piers Wenger, Director of BBC Drama, added: “These exceptional figures for The Serpent are a testament to the power of telling the lesser-known, human side of a real-life story, and an exceptional creative team. It’s great to see The Serpent become such a hit, driven in no small part by phenomenal word-of-mouth from the British public watching the boxset on BBC iPlayer.”
Inspired by real events, The Serpent tells the story of how the conman and murderer Charles Sobhraj was brought to justice. More information about the series can be found here.
The Serpent will soon be available outside of the UK and Ireland on Netflix.