BBC Four started airing Lilyhammer a week or so ago, and I tuned in to the first episode to see what it was like. Lilyhammer is exciting because it’s a Netflix original - the DVD and streaming company put their hands in their pockets and paid for this show to be created. It’s a bold new move from them, rather than sitting back and waiting for deals to be done with existing production teams, they got on and did it themselves.

With ITV finally bringing out their app for iDevices, we know have all channels from 1 through to 4 covered. The BBC iPlayer has been doing it’s iPad business for a while now, Channel 4 had their On Demand app out relatively recently, and ITV have now joined the gang. The ITV app is not a bad one but the choice is limited, considering how many channels ITV have. There was nothing on there I’d watch, but it has all the staples, Emmerdale, Coronation Street… Jeremy Kyle.

When the iPlayer stats first started appearing, they were a one-page document with just a few bits and bobs to take note of. Now, it’s a 20-page pdf full of fascinating figures and statistics. There were a few pages of January’s statistics that I found more interesting than others. Firstly, the average minutes consumed by users per week. That’s just over six months of data and it doesn’t seem to be getting much higher or lower.

Mr C bought an iPad pretty much the moment he could, and we had fun for a while playing around on it. Mostly, it was in his custody though, and about a week ago, I noticed he really wasn’t getting the most out of it. So, I commandeered it. I have an iPad now! I’m still playing around with it, learning things, figuring out how I’ll use it and where, but here are five awesome things I have noticed so far:

The BBC released some statistics to coincide with the iPlayer’s second birthday ahead of the festive season. Some facts: Average of 5 million unique users a week iPlayer on mobiles peaks on weekday nights between 7pm and midnight The top streaming series for the year (Top Gear) generated more than 1.5 million streams, whilst the top radio was just 183,000. Supposedly Mac users prefer comedies, while PC users prefer dramas. Just after these numbers were released, the BBC Trust provisionally approved plans for the Beeb to get involved with the Project Canvas initiative.

Some more pretty graphics to display those lovely new media stats. This time, the iPlayer and how it is growing: Read more and view the full image here.

Now that I no longer keep up the BBC blog, I’ve found myself drowning in interesting tidbits that I want to share. So, this is that post, collecting together some of the latest things I have been enjoying from the vast collection of BBC blogs. Moderation: Let’s Talk it Over I know a lot of people get upset when their comments are moderated on a particular portion of the site. I don’t comment there, myself, but I do find having to skim through all those ’this comment was moderated’ really quite annoying.

Via the iPlayer, I watched a four-part series about Mark Beaumont. He’s a cyclist from Scotland who set himself the challenge of crossing the world - 18,000 miles - in under 200 days to set a new Guinness World Record. If you missed the programme, there’s plenty of information about it on the BBC website, including when and where it will be on (if it’s repeated). The guy was absolutely amazing.

I was going to write a post about the ITV player, and how it’s new and improved and could start rivalling the iPlayer. But then Channel 4 released some shows onto iTunes and I forgot about everything else. The most important thing to note is that I have now given up buying a TV Guide, and I’m relying on TV blogs to tell me what to watch, and I’m relying on the internet to allow me to watch it.

First the iPlayer, and now iTunes. Finally, the BBC have allowed their programmes to be on the iTunes store. It’s only a select few at the moment, and only one that I’m particularly interested in, but this is a revolutionary moment. I understand that there are limitations and conflicts with the BBC’s charter – they can’t charge us for content when we pay our licence fee, can they? But I believe buying from iTunes is no different to buying a DVD and there are hundreds of BBC DVD titles to choose from.