BBC One drama Sherlock has become the most watched show on the BBC iPlayer according to Hitwise, a data analysis company that specialises in monitoring the web.

According to the company, 4.3m Brits visited the BBC iPlayer site on the 2 January following the airing of the first episode of Sherlock on the 1 January.

"New Year’s Day saw the much anticipated return of Benedict Cumberbatch reprising his role as Sherlock Holmes in the first episode of the second season of Sherlock. Looking at the total visits to iPlayer on 2 January there were 4.3 million visits from UK Internet users, a new record for iPlayer," writes Robin Goad a research director at Hitwise on the company's blog. 

The massive viewing figures trumped the iPlayer's boxing day figure of 4.2m by 100,000 and the ITV Player by over 3.6m visits. It got just 723,000 visits on Boxing day.  

The figures, combined with TV viewing figures from BARB, imply that more people opted to watch Downton Abbey live on ITV on Christmas day perhaps knowing they could easily catch up with Eastenders, that was shown at the same time, on Boxing Day via the Beeb's on-demand service.

Hitwise also notes that the combination of Eastenders and Dr Who Christmas specials, as well other shows, meant that over 13.8 million hours were spent on iPlayer in December with over half a million hours spent on Boxing Day alone.

Did you catch up via the iPlayer over Christmas? Let us know in the comments below.