‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’ beats queen to top TV rating

‘MRS Brown’s Boys’ gave the BBC the UK’s top-rated show on a single channel on Christmas Day, with 6.8 million viewers.

Charlotte Moore, director of BBC content, said: “Millions of people chose BBC1 on Christmas Day and came together to enjoy the top six most popular programmes from comedy, drama and entertainment, with ‘Mrs Brown’s Boys’ returning to the top spot.”

Queen Elizabeth’s message attracted 7.8 million viewers over BBC1, ITV and ITV’s catchup plus-one channel, and was also broadcast on Sky.

BBC1 took the six most popular shows of the day, with the ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ Christmas special coming second with 6.5 million viewers.

Hit soap ‘EastEnders’ and period drama ‘Call The Midwife’ were next, both with 6.3 million, followed by Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas broadcast on BBC1 (5.9 million), which was also seen by 1.9 million on ITV. The Christmas message beat ‘Doctor Who’, which was sixth with 5.7 million.

In the top 10, ITV got a lookin at seventh place with ‘Coronation Street’, at 5.1 million, including its plus-one catch-up channel.

Last year, the ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ Christmas special was the most popular programme on TV on Christmas Day, with an average audience of 7.2 million watching head judge Len Goodman’s final appearance on the panel.

Channel 4 said ‘The Great British Bake Off ’ attracted the broadcaster’s biggest Christmas Day overnight audience since modern records began in 2002.

It won an average audience of 3.1 million viewers and a 13.6pc share of audience from 7.40pm to 9pm, peaking with 3.4 million viewers.

The previous biggest Christmas Day broadcast on Channel 4 was ‘Home Alone’ in 2016 which drew three million viewers.