I’m A Celebrity and Derry Girls among most watched

THE opening episode of I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here was Northern Ireland’s mostwatched programme last year.

An audience of 409,000 tuned in to the UTV show, a share of over 53% of those watching TV at that time.

The next two most-viewed programmes in 2017 were BBC One’s Newsline and UTV Live on October 16 — the day Hurricane Ophelia struck.

The BBC’s coverage had 383,000 viewers while UTV recorded 380,000. The other mostwatched shows were Blue Planet II (349,000), Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special (347,000) and an episode of Strictly Come Dancing from December 9 (332,000).

Of the top 20 programmes in 2017, 11 were broadcast on BBC One, with nine on UTV.

The list also includes Britain’s Got Talent, Call The Midwife and episodes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

The report also refers to the success of Derry Girls, which Channel 4 said became Northern Ireland’s biggest ever series since modern records began in 2002.

Consolidated figures, which include time-shifted viewing over a seven-day period, show that the comedy had an average of 519,000 viewers here — a 64.2% share of the Northern Ireland TV audience.

UK-wide figures show the first series of Derry Girls was watched by an average of 2.5 million viewers, making it Channel 4’s biggest comedy launch since 2004. It is also the biggest ever comedy launch series on All 4.

Derry Girls was ‘NI’s biggest series since modern records began’